


A Walk-on Part in the War, Diaspora

by writernotwaiting



Series: A Walk-on Part in the War [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Empath, Empathy, F/M, Family Drama, Long-Term Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Romance, Trauma, auditory hallucination, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:34:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 33,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4118758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writernotwaiting/pseuds/writernotwaiting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So Loki the Prodigal Son has been forgiven and Sannaet is recovering from her ordeal -- everything is wonderful, right? But we all know that it's never that easy when Loki is involved.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Security

_“How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,_

_If like a lamb he could his looks translate.” – Sonnet 96_

 

“How could there have been such a massive security breech? Have you investigated at all? They materialized right outside her door. They knew everything. They knew more than you did.”

Loki paced the room during this diatribe as Odin and Thor sat at a table. It was the first time the three of them had spoken since he and Thor had returned from the Gwyrioneth home world, though weeks had passed. Now that Sannaet had re-emerged into consciousness, Loki had left the hospital and returned to work, though not before insisting that Sif remain and stand guard.

“We have investigated,” Odin replied, his face a blank mask, though his words were clipped short with annoyance. He raised himself threateningly from his seat. “Do you think I do not know how to react when I am threatened?” Despite their recent detente, tensions remained high between Loki and his adopted father. Whatever truce they had agreed to, neither would entirely trust the other again.

Loki advanced on the table with his eyes narrowed, but his reply was cut off when Thor stood to interrupt: “What did the investigation discover?”

Loki looked at his brother and swallowed the snide remark he had readied. Instead, he sat down and nodded curtly for Odin to continue, though he did not relax. The Allfather slowly returned to his seat before explaining.

“We began by questioning the library staff and visitors — everyone who had been in the building since the banquet. None had seen anything untoward, though some of the staff mentioned that you seemed to be spending a good deal more time there than in the past. We searched her rooms thoroughly and eventually discovered three devices — 2 surveillance devices, and one device that appears to have been a beacon for their portal.” Here, he tossed three small items onto the table, a small china horse that had sat on a shelf in her workroom, a metal badge that had decorated the door frame leading into her apartments from the library, and a finial from the curtail rod in her bedroom. “The badge worked as the anchor signal for their portal. The other two were surveillance devices. I imagine they gleaned a good many intimate details, given their placement,” he added with pointed understatement.

Loki ground his teeth at the unnecessary jab, but for once chose not to rise to the bait. Instead he asked, “Have you any theories as to how they were placed?”

“There was one staff member whom we were unable to question.” Odin replied. “When we went to speak to the head librarian, we were told she had not been to work in several days. We found her body in a back corner of her home.”

*****

“Ellie?” The color drained out of Sannaet’s face when Loki recounted that morning’s discussion. “Impossible — she was a friend — she would never — I would have felt a difference in her heart.”

“It was probably not a permanent possession, and certainly not affected while you were present. She could easily have been made to plant the devices while you were on the practice field with Sif, and questioned about your activities only when she was home after work. If she were placed in a trance-like state, she might have no conscious memory of the events. Once they had gleaned the information they needed, she would have become disposable, and a danger, if her repressed memories could be recovered.”

 _Death follows me everywhere_ , she thought.

He laced his fingers through hers and curled his other arm around her as they sat on a small couch next to the hospital bed. “I’m not sure I can live in those rooms again,” she confessed. “Is there an empty apartment nearby the library where I could move? It wouldn’t be as convenient or as private, but then, it seems that secrecy is a moot point now.”

“There isn’t anything near the library that we feel can be rendered adequately secure,” he answered, his face set in grim lines.

“Who is ‘we’?” She asked. He wasn’t being entirely honest and she could feel it.

He pretended not to hear her question, and continued: “We found some rooms in the palace that will be much easier to watch over. Your movements will necessarily be a bit more restricted until we can eliminate Thanos, or at least render him a non-entity. But your work and reference materials can be brought to you.”

She became suspicious. “There aren’t any empty rooms in the palace.”

“There are now,” was his only reply. There was no trace of his trademark smirk, and he offered no explanation, only saying that her things had already been moved, including all of the books and library materials that had been in her workroom. His face was as closed as his heart determined.

*****

The mystery cleared itself up as soon as she was released from the healers’ care. Loki had arranged that his own rooms be divided in order to create a second living space — interior doors had been blocked, and a second entrance added so she could enter her rooms without going through his. He had, apparently, decided to take personal responsibility for her security, and blamed himself for the success of the previous attack. “I’ve been over every inch of these rooms,” he told her, “— both before and after the workman were in. There will be no repeat performances.”

The space was not extensive, but she still had a workspace separate from the private rooms in back. She also had access to a small garden that backed Loki’s rooms, as well. As he had promised, all of her research materials, tools, and clothing had been moved from the library apartments to these. The only difference was that her front door opened into a hallway of the palace, and a guard in plain clothing was to be stationed by that door at all times. She was no longer anonymous.


	2. Of Politics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You enjoy this, don’t you?”  
> “Absolutely,” he enthused as he grabbed her hand and gave it smooch. “It’s even more fun than torturing my brother.”  
> “Hmmph.” Was her only reply.  
> “You hate it,” he observed — with just a tiny bit of disappointment.

_“All eyes gaze on us.” – Romeo and Juliet, III.1_

 

Living in the palace required a radical readjustment. Where the library was sedate and sparsely populated, the palace vacillated only between busy-and-crowded to frenetic-and-packed. Sannaet found that she had to filter out the background noise from hundreds of hearts, many wound tight by a mixture of need, intrigue, and vanity. Gone, too, was her obscurity. Palace life was surreally public, and for Sannaet, it was painfully so. Most meals were public displays among creatures acutely aware of status where seating charts were hotly debated. The palace was a culture of competitive public display, and Sannaet’s known association with Loki guaranteed that she was the center of attention.

Every time she left her rooms, she was watched, and not just by the bodyguard that shadowed her every move. Everything about her was noted, dissected, commented on— hair color, hair style, eye color, complexion, weight, height, the shape of her eyebrows, the curve of her chin, whether or what type of jewelry she wore, the crease on the sleeve of her tunic, the fact the she wore breeches, the color of her breeches, the scuffs on her boots, whom she spoke to, for how long, what about, where she went, and how long she spent there. It was a level of scrutiny she had never experienced.

During the first few days, she had gone out for walks to explore. She felt a sense of adventure in getting to know an unfamiliar and beautifully designed space. She went out to admire the architecture and the many fine works of art that seemed to be tucked into every corner of the palace. She even took a sketchbook and pencils with her, and would occasionally linger to re-create a view or work of art that she particularly admired. She also found many willing models, and spent several afternoons in gardens sketching portraits for social climbers who had nothing better to do than flatter someone who seemed to have the ear of the heir apparent.

The scrutiny, however, soon began to feel oppressive. She went out less and less, and then only at times when fewer crowds would be about — early mornings or the middle of the night. Soon she would leave only when she had to — practice with Sif, or a dinner to which she was specifically invited. She even told the staff that she would clean her rooms herself. She could not get used to strangers going through her things. She became downright grumpy.

****

“Politics!” The word came out much like a curse as she sat over lunch with Sif one afternoon. “It’s all anyone thinks about in this place — it drives me crazy. Not a single heart is entirely truthful, ever. Everyone here always has an agenda. Sif, you are a rare gem in this building full of weasels. How can you stand it?”

Sif shrugged her shoulders and laughed — resisting the temptation to remind Sannaet that she had allied herself with the king of the weasels as far as she was concerned. “Why do you think I traded in my gown for a suit of armor? When you fight on a battlefield, you know who your enemy is — he’s the one trying to slice off your head. In the palace, no one makes an honest frontal attack, and they keep their weapons well disguised.”

Sannaet nodded, “Everyone just smiles and nods, but their hearts are always at odds with their faces. Etiquette governs every gesture and remark. At home, I worked in a building full of empaths, and I never had to worry about etiquette or social protocols, because everyone always knew immediately whether they had pleased someone or pissed them off—as well as when they felt remorse for their actions. In a place like this, everything one says or does has to be governed by a rule book as thick as a footstool and full of diagrams. I have never been patient with rules like that, and now I live in a soup dish full of them. You have no idea how bloody my tongue has been from biting back honest commentary.”

Sif laughed sympathetically: “You have more self control than I would in your place. I’ve gotten into more than one fight with those palace harpies.”

“I would pay to see that,” Sannaet laughed in return. Sif’s smile lingered, but the laughter died out of her heart, “It was not so funny at the time.” Sif let out a puff of air and rolled her eyes to shake off her mood. “Not all of them are so bad. The queen made sure that the worst of them were kept busy and out of trouble. I don’t think any of us realized how much the Allfather relied on her to keep the court in order. She could spot a weasel from a hundred paces off, and she had everyone’s family connections memorized out to the fifth cousins. She knew all of the alliances and the grudges. Without her, there has been a good deal more in-fighting and intrigue at court than there used to be. Everyone has been jockeying for position. It still hasn’t sorted itself out entirely.”

“So, then, whom should I be wary of? Maybe you ought to make me a chart.” Sannaet’s tone stayed light, but she was only half joking.

“Well, I’m no politician, but I can tell you a few things that might be useful.” The two women sat together most of the afternoon and into the early evening as Sif matched up her knowledge of the various noble houses and their alliances with what Sannaet had gathered during her research. Sif also described the weasels that she thought Sannaet should be the most careful to avoid, and which ones seemed mostly harmless. It had begun to get dark when a knock came and Loki sauntered into the room.

The joke on Sif’s mouth faded quickly as she nodded a curt greeting in his general direction, while Loki’s expression echoed her distaste. Sif had conceded that, perhaps, Loki wasn’t as evil as she had thought, but that didn’t mean she had to like him. She stood, said something about it getting late, touched Sannaet’s hand in farewell and left without ever moving her gaze from his face. “I hope to see you again soon,” he shot after her sarcastically, as he flashed her a tight, artificial smile.

Once the door closed, he rolled his eyes and then joined Sannaet at the table. “What was she doing here?”

“Sif was filling me in on all of the various species of weasel that live at court. I think I will have to start a new volume dedicated purely to Asgardian politics. There’s more than enough material.”

“Enough for a three-volume set, at least,” he agreed gleefully as he pulled a chair around to sit as close to her as possible.

“You enjoy this, don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” he enthused as he grabbed her hand and gave it smooch. “It’s even more fun than torturing my brother.”

“Hmmph.” Was her only reply.

“You hate it,” he observed — with just a tiny bit of disappointment.

“I do. Every time I leave the room, I’m in a mental fencing match with a dozen opponents. I am no courtier, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said cryptically, and she felt something in his heart that she didn’t care for.

“What?” She said suspiciously.

“Well,” he began, as he grabbed some fruit left over from her lunch, “The Allfather has just been discussing with me how useful it could be if you were to attend court next week.”

“The _Allfather_ said this,” she said skeptically.

“Odin and Thor both agree,” he nodded with an angelic look.

“They both _agree_. And pray tell, whose was the suggestion?” She asked with annoyance.

“Mine,” came the complaisant reply, though he carefully did not meet her gaze when he said it.

“Loki, why? That would be horrible,” and she meant it.

“In what way would it not be useful? You could sit as inconspicuously as you please in the background, and indicate — subtly — when anyone is trying to lie to us. It will make so many things so much easier. Anyway, the court will only be in session for nine days, and two of those are feast days — all you have to do then is sit in the mead hall and watch Thor make a fool of himself when he drinks too much.”

“It sounds awful.”

He was a little dismayed at the vehemence of her response. _It’s all so logical — how can she not see that? Her empathic ability makes her the most perfect counselor a ruler could possibly hope for._

The scheme also had an added bonus: he could personally keep watch over her while court was in session. Despite the fact that he had hand-picked her security detail, he never quite felt her safe unless he was in the same room. He really did think she would be helpful, but he also wanted her where he could keep an eye on her.

He leaned over and lowered his voice, “Would you try it for a few days?” He asked sweetly. “For me,” punctuating his request by slowly trailing up her neck with his tongue and placing a lingering kiss just under her ear.

“Cheater.”

He smiled wickedly, “Always.”

“I won’t wear a dress,” she declared, salvaging some sense of control over the situation.

He sighed. “Well you can’t wear this,” he declared, gesturing to her current clothes. “No one ever wears black at court — if your goal is to remain inconspicuous, you have to wear something else.”

“Fine. Just not a dress,” and she slouched into her chair with a harumph.

*****

When he came to see her the next day, he brought a seamstress with him who had sketched out a few possibilities. Well, okay, a lot of possibilities, because Sannaet apparently needed a pile of new clothes.

“You can’t wear the same thing two days in a row — it’s not what’s done,” Mira insisted, bobbing curtly. She was a no-nonsense professional who had worked at the palace for years, and was certain she knew much better than her client what would be proper. She pulled out her stack of drawings and spread them out across the breakfast table. Sannaet was pleased that Mira had seemed much more restrained than she had feared. The designs were, by and large, elegant and simple. Sannaet picked out a few that she preferred, but sensed a bit of disappointment in Mira’s heart. She leaned over to the woman and whispered deferentially, “Are there a few that you would suggest particularly?”

“I wouldn’t want to be too forward, ma’am,” she said with a confidence that belied the curtsy accompanying her words, “but I think these would look particularly flattering.” They were, perhaps, not what Sannaet would have chosen herself — they seemed a bit too sumptuous — but she added them to her other selections with a smile.

“Thank you, Mira, you have an excellent design sense, and your drawings are rendered very well.” The woman smiled, and bobbed once more before gathering her drawings together and vanishing out the door.

As Sannaet sat down, Loki teased her, “there, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” She slapped his hand away from the remains of her breakfast: “I notice that all of the choices included some variation of green in them,” she noted.

“I think you will look particularly lovely wrapped in green,” he replied with a tiny curl to his lips.

“And?”

“And it’s my favorite color.”

“And?”

He drew his mouth into a bit of a sneer as he answered. “There are plenty of foxes at court, as well as weasels — I don’t want any of them sniffing at your skirts — metaphorically, of course, since you refuse to wear them.” She rolled her eyes.

“As if there were anyone within a five-mile radius who might _not_ be connected to the gossip network that fuels this place,” she said snidely.

He pointedly did not smile as he punctuated his remark, “I just want to make things clear.”

“Is that an official declaration, then, that I am a kept woman?” She was joking — he was not. He looked at her directly as he took exception, “That is not what I meant.”

Her expression sobered: “What did you mean, then?”

He opened his mouth and drew breath to speak, but then closed it again. He looked at her seriously for a moment, . . . then changed the subject completely.

Looking under the table he noted abruptly, “We still need to do something about your shoes.” He punctuated his remark by kneeling in front of her, and placing her foot on his knee.

“What’s wrong with my boots?”

“Hardly court attire,” he noted critically, as he began slowly unlacing. “How old _are_ these?”

“They’re comfortable,” she said defensively.

“A well-made pair of boots are both beautiful and a joy to wear,” he purred, and slowly slipped the offending boot off her foot without ever breaking her gaze.

“It would take too long,” she countered. “They wouldn’t be ready in time.” But her voice got tinier as he repeated the performance with her other foot and proceeded to move his hands up her calves, and over her thighs.

His voice went down a register: “I am on excellent terms with a very fine craftsman.” By now he had moved his torso between her legs and spoke into her neck. “I spoke to him yesterday, and we picked out leather almost as soft as the skin between your thighs,” and he moved his hand to demonstrate precisely what he meant. “I was able to supply him with precise measurements, and he should have them ready for you tomorrow afternoon.”

“You can be very persuasive,” she admitted, slightly short of breath.

“I take pride in it,” he smiled, before covering her mouth with his own.


	3. Of Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She winced.   
> Then she got angry – I will not be bullied by anyone ever again, not when I have a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: threat of m on fm violence

_“I will do myself the right to trust none.” — Much Ado about Nothing, I.1_

Mid-morning sun shone through the window on the day before court was to convene. Sannaet lay in that lovely state between waking and sleeping, a contented smile playing on her lips as she lay on her stomach and cradled her head in her arms. Her skin twitched slightly as Loki traced a lazy pattern across her back. She breathed a great sigh of contentment, sensing as much as hearing his chuckle of self satisfaction.

“Tell me about these tattoos,” came his soft question.

She opened her mouth and then closed it again when she realized she had no ready reply. The marks were extensive — elaborate images of horses, birds, dogs, dragons and knot-work spread across her back, all vaguely echoing Norse iconography. The knot work also spread down the length of her arms, stopping three or four inches above her wrist. It had taken Laera many hours to complete the work during the few days before the final attack. Since Sannaet had ceased work on her books, however, she hadn’t given any thought to them for many weeks. She shifted a little to bring one knee up and hug the pillow closer. What should she say?

￼

As the silence lengthened, she felt his mood shift from playful to something more serious. “I didn’t realize it was such a difficult question,” and his voice carried an edge of irritation. He then felt her mood shift, as her contentment was chased into the back recesses of her heart and replaced by uncertainty and caution. _What could possibly be so secret about a tattoo?_ He groused to himself.

“Well,” she began, not wanting to lie, but not sure what she should explain, “It’s complicated.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into the curve of him: “I have time,” he cajoled.

Still, she hesitated, and then became more flustered as she felt him become tense, and felt suspicion creep into his heart.

After another pause he dropped the accusation, “You don’t trust me,” he said flatly.

“Quoth the Supreme Master of Untruth himself,” she joked, trying to lift his mood, but the attempt misfired, and he began to disengage his limbs from hers. She scowled in frustration, “Do you tell me everything?”

“You did take a fairly leisurely stroll around the inside of my head, did you not?” This quip was directed at the ceiling, as he had rolled onto his back and placed his hands behind his head.

She rolled onto her side to face him. “Around your emotional landscape, yes, as you did mine, but emotions aren’t memories — they aren’t data points. You are perfectly aware of exactly how much about your life I know — it’s all in the biography, in the histories I’ve compiled. Would you say it covers everything? I doubt it.”

“But these,” he protested, moving to run his fingers down the patterns on her arm, “these are both intimate and public. Art is an expression of something, a declaration. This is even more true for images such as these, that literally become part of who you are. Why do I have to keep asking who you are, and why do you still not offer a full answer?”

She scrunched her face in frustration. _I wish I could give you a full answer_ , she sighed to herself. “Because it’s not my secret to tell. It’s a story that belongs to others, as well, and I cannot share their secrets without their consent.”

Even though Loki could feel the regret that colored her words, all he heard was her refusal, a refusal that his past twisted into a barrier between them. _I should have known better_ , was his first thought. _Sentiment is just an invitation for an open wound_. His face schooled itself into a neutral mask as his instinct for self-protection took over.

She felt the old bitterness well up in his heart, felt him trying to close her out — it hurt. What was worse, however, was that he felt her wound and reacted with an ever-so-tiny flame of triumph – _Good,_ he thought. _She should suffer._

She winced.

Then she got angry – _I will not be bullied by anyone ever again, not when I have a choice_. She turned to get out of bed as she lashed out at him: “You self-indulgent prat. Have you decided to play martyr now that you’ve given over playing homicidal maniac?”

Something snapped, and suddenly it was as though he wasn’t there at all, but some animal backed into a corner. That tiny ball of triumph converted to fury, as he pulled her back onto the bed and held her down, his face rigid and threatening, “Just because I permit you to share my bed, does not mean you can speak to me like that.”

“Permit?” Her eyes grew wide in angry disbelief. “Permit? Who was it that insisted I move out of the library? Who is it that comes wandering into my room from the garden every day? You should know better by now than to think you can cow me into submission. Get off me and get out now, if that’s your plan, O King of Cats.”

But he was not himself – ancient frustration at being excluded and taunted by his peers, hopeless rage at paternal rejection, impotence in the face of hallucination and torture – all of these boiled up from his subconscious and took over as if he had been possessed. He forced himself between her legs, and pushed her farther into the bedding. “Before I leave, you will beg for me like a bitch in heat.”

She met his gaze with one equally intense, mirroring his fury and frustration with her own: “Is that the way you want it, then? By ownership? I’m sure you’ve had it that way before. How satisfying was it?” And her lip curled up in contempt. His face twisted as her words brought him back to himself. And as he regained self-awareness his fury became mixed with self-loathing. He searched her face, looked at his hands as if they belonged to someone else, then let go of her abruptly and practically leapt out of the bed.

She sat up and pulled on a robe that had lain crumpled on the floor as her hands shook. Moments passed by as she took in ragged breaths to regain self-control, staring at his back as he pulled on his clothes, and then leaned on a nearby chair, knuckles white as they gripped its back. Finally she regained enough composure to speak: “I will go to court for you,” she almost whispered, “and I will work with you. . . . I will even love you.” She closed her eyes and turned her head away as she said the last. “May all that is truthful bless me, because I do love you.” She scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and then looked back to see his eyes fixed on her face – guilty, confused . . . wary. “However, I will not be your lover on those terms. I will **not** be your pet.”

“But you do not trust me.” He turned away with his jaw clenched tight as a tear threatened to break free and wander down his cheek.

His heart radiated a wild jumble of aching angry hungry guilty dark mistrustful need. It would not sort itself out, so he chose retreat, and left.

Sannaet pulled her knees to her chest and closed her eyes for a long, lonely moment. “Well,” she said quietly, as she ran her hands through her hair and massaged the tension in her scalp, “we all have to make our own choices, eventually. I guess I have made mine. He will have to choose his for himself.”

She rose out of bed to get dressed.

*****

Once she had dressed and eaten, Sannaet cast about trying to find ways to occupy her day. She was already nervous about tomorrow, and the morning’s argument added to her unease. She cleaned her rooms. Arranged her closet — setting in order the luxurious clothes that Mira had brought only the day before. She rearranged the items in her workspace, and in her small parlor. She scrubbed the bathroom, and set out in neat little rows all of the fancy soaps and tchotchkes on the shelves.

After lunch, she asked her security detail to walk her over to the court, so she could see exactly where she was expected to sit, should Loki still expect her to go. The room was vast, able to hold hundreds, and was busy with preparations. A steward bustled around giving orders and triple checking the arrangements. Columns were decked with flowers, seats placed and polished, even the floor sparkled. The steward carefully set place cards in all of the chairs, ticking each name off a list as he did so. Sannaet smiled at his efficiency — he was clearly very good at his job. Not a flower petal would be out of place come tomorrow. She asked him to show her where she would be placed. He drew himself up with a good deal of importance at the request, walked her up to the very front of the room, and gestured toward the dais on which the throne itself rose as an imposing monolith. Stage left, on a platform perhaps three-feet high, sat a small drafting table, complete with a dish for water, cups in which to organize brushes and pencils, and space to store extra paper. “Oh my.” Her hand went to cover her mouth, as she glanced again at the steward. He smiled indulgently, though she could read a bit of irritation in his heart — the arrangement was an unusual one, and he clearly preferred his life to remain utterly predictable. “Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed, “that’s where m’lord asked that your seat be placed. He said that you would serve as an official recorder of events.”

“May I come early tomorrow, then, to set up my tools?”

“Certainly, ma’am, I expected it.” He bowed curtly and turned efficiently back to his task.


	4. Of Playing Dress Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "At the end of the day, Sannaet was exhausted, and could only manage a small supper before she reverse-engineered her hair and clothing into her own once again. If she had felt exposed during her walks through the palace several weeks ago, now she felt as though her nerves had been laid open and picked over. "

_“I see the play so lies_

_That I must bear a part.” – A Winter’s Tale, IV.4_

 

Loki did not return that day, though he did send a brief note asking her once again to go to court. Sannaet had hoped for a bit of a briefing, but hadn’t really expected it after the way they had parted in the morning. He had too many issues to work through, and like herself, was unlikely to ask anyone to help him sort things out. However, she had promised she would go. So she sent a brief reply that she would attend, but no other message. If he had decided to sort this one out by himself, there was little she could say to influence his decision.

She ate dinner alone, set out the clothes she would wear the next day, and made a small, neat pile of the tools and papers she would take with her to court. Her anxiety magnified as she thought of the scrutiny she would face, then redoubled itself again when she felt for Loki’s heart and sensed the same solipsistic chaos as before his retreat. Old wounds had opened up in his heart and tainted every emotion they came in contact with.

 _Nine days_ , she coached herself. _I need to survive the next nine days, and then I can sink back into obscurity again._ She would treat it as an endurance test, she decided. _But it would be so much easier with his help._ When night fell, she didn’t bother crawling into bed. She sat up in a chair next to the window and dozed off and on, dodging nightmares she just barely kept in check.

*****

She got up and bathed well before a breakfast tray came in. Shortly afterward, a quiet knock sounded at the door. When Sannaet looked out, a young woman bobbed a curtsy, introduced herself as Ragna, and said she had been sent to help put up her hair, if she would like assistance. _Hmph! Loki probably just wants to have someone inspect me and make sure I won’t be an embarrassment._ She sighed: _not that I blame him much for that_. She knew court attire and etiquette in theory only, having never sought the occasion to attend, even when Frigga had offered her a spot at the back of the room. Sannaet opened the door wide for her new assistant to come in, and surrendered to her ministrations.

It was a good thing Sannaet had gotten up early: _who knew it took so long to braid hair properly_. She sat as patiently as she could manage while her tangle of curls was pulled tight and arranged in intricate plaits to keep them tamed for the day. Once finished, Ragna pulled out some jewels Loki had sent to add a little sparkle to her appearance. She would have liked to imagine they were a peace offering, but got the distinct impression from Ragna that they were loans not gifts. Yet they were still beautiful, and complemented Sannaet’s clothes perfectly — long strands of tourmalines for her neck, and teardrop earrings to match. Once Ragna left, Sannaet pulled on the new boots for the first time. They were as splendid as he had promised — as supple as fabric, as soft as a baby’s cheek, a rich, dark reddish brown She looked in the mirror and decided that she might look suitable for a court appearance. She had been forced to wear a dress at that horrid banquet before the attack, but these clothes suited her much better. _Hmph! I suppose you clean up alright_ , she told herself, _though it still feels a bit like playing dress up_.

The last thing she did before gathering her paints and tools was to tuck Frigga’s knife into her boot as a talisman — against what, she wasn’t exactly sure.

*****

She snuck into court quietly by a back door well before the grand entry was to start. Not even the gawkers had been allowed into the back galleries. She nodded at the steward as she arranged her things at the table, and went to seek water for her dish. Then she just settled in for the wait, looking over the room and trying to distract herself by seeing its details with her father’s eyes — _he was a real artist_ , she remembered, _not just a hobbyist like me. How he would have loved to see all of this_. She did what she could to forget how conspicuously she had been placed, but her heart beat faster once the doors opened and the audience began to trickle in. She could see nearly everything, which of course meant that nearly everyone would be able to see her. In front. In green. With borrowed jewels. As the crowd began to fill the room, she attempted to deflect as much attention as possible, but it was a losing proposition — there were just too many people to throw off at once. She could sense the attention she brought, and ducked her head to begin sketching the room.

At last the session began with a grand flourish. The first families processed up to fill their privileged seats, and then The Allfather himself took the throne with Loki a step below and to his right. His heart still rumbled with stormclouds, though he somehow managed to suppress them enough to concentrate on his work, and barely glanced in her direction as he took his post. In response, anger began to nest in among the anxiety in Sannaet’s heart, and they nursed each other throughout the morning.

To make things worse, as her emotions intensified, she found it more difficult to filter out the emotional background noise from the crowd. Her emotions got caught in a slowly building feedback loop.

*****

Loki sensed her distress, of course, just as he had felt her restlessness the day before, and felt her struggle with insomnia after dark. It took effort, in fact, for him to ignore her, especially given his own emotional chaos. But he had decided to distance himself. It was the only way he could sort out his position. _She had not trusted him_. This was a rejection, as far as he was concerned, and he had vowed to never permit himself to be vulnerable to such rejection ever again. Added to that insecurity now was shame — he was appalled at what had happened the day before, and hated the part of himself that seemed so far beyond his control. So he maintained a physical distance, and refused to look at her, unless protocols demanded it. By the time court broke for the afternoon meal, however, he had a massive headache as his attention divided itself between petitioners to the court, his own turmoil, and Sannaet’s increasing anxiety and anger. He looked hard at her as the court rose to recess, her face schooled into a blank, determined mask. Just at that moment, she glanced up and the flame of her anger caught him like a physical blow to the back of his head before she looked away once more and suppressed the emotion. _How does she bottle it back up like that? Still a puzzle_ , he thought to himself as he tried to re-focus his attention on the task at hand, _I am always finding more pieces than I hadn’t expected, pieces that just don’t fit._ And it was a puzzle, he found, that would not leave him alone.

*****

At the end of the day, Sannaet was exhausted, and could only manage a small supper before she reverse-engineered her hair and clothing into her own once again. If she had felt exposed during her walks through the palace several weeks ago, now she felt as though her nerves had been laid open and picked over. Such exposure was directly at odds with a lifetime dedicated to remaining as invisible as possible. Yet here she was on display, and bereft of any emotional support — no mother, no mentor to soften the tension, no lover to help keep the panic at bay or caress her back to sanity now that the day was over. Loki’s coldness left her feeling drained and homesick. It was a palpable reminder of what she had lost, of her isolation.

The one bright spot to the day came when Sif stopped by to sit with her for a few minutes, bringing her treats and some wine. “You do not look like yourself,” her friend remarked bluntly. “What is the matter?”

Sannaet attempted to make light of the question and laughed, “Oh you are a bit like a mother hen, aren’t you? I will be fine.”

“But you are not fine. I may not be an empath, but I can see how tired you are. Did you not sleep well?”

“No,” she admitted, “I did not. This is all very hard to get used to. The crowds are enormous, the noise from their hearts is so loud, and I am placed in such a way that makes it impossible for me to remain unnoticed. I can tell that most people are excited to attend court, but it is an ordeal for me rather than an adventure.”

Sif placed her hands on the back of a chair and leaned toward her friend earnestly: “Why go, then? It serves no purpose for you to be there — you are just Loki’s wall decoration — a trophy.” Sif was not disposed to think charitably about Loki on the best of days, and had watched with distaste as he treated Sannaet with cold dispassion at court. It was inexcusable.

Sannaet blinked and looked up into her face, “Sif, do you remember the little boy that you grew up with?” Sif looked at Sannaet quizzically, nodded, and shrugged noncommittally before taking a seat.

“Do you remember the teasing? Between the three boys?”

“I suppose — but boys always do that.”

“And there is always a pecking order, yes?” Sif shrugged in agreement.

“And I can guess,” Sannaet continued carefully, “who was always at the bottom of that pecking order?” Sif nodded once again soberly, a slight blush starting to come into her cheeks as uncomfortable memories rose up.

Sannaet could feel Sif become defensive, and so she paused, trying to figure out how to explain. “What Loki is now . . . all of you had part in shaping that. When the Enemy did whatever it was he did to him, that only polished resentments that were already there. He simply found old wounds and tore them open, poured in salt, and widened them. Loki was always the outsider, never quite a full member of the club, never quite good enough. And now he protects himself.”

“That does not excuse the way he treated you today,” Sif replied with a frown.

Sannaet looked away and screwed up the side of her mouth to disguise her heart and dam up the puddle behind her eyes. Then she shrugged, cleared her throat, and shifted the topic slightly as she tried to reassure her friend. “I promised I would attend court, and so I will. I will not go back on my promise. It’s only eight more days, and two of those are feast days, so they don’t really count. I will be fine.” While Sif did not like this answer, she could at least respect it, and decided to leave well enough alone. She made Sannaet promise to get some sleep, and left for the night.

It was a useless promise.

Sannaet’s heart warred with itself as she got ready for bed, and as she changed into her nightclothes, she stood with her back to the mirror to study the tattoos Laera had spread across her back.They were far more elaborate than Sannaet remembered. She thought back on the hours it took for Laera to trace the patterns before she had finally crawled through the portal.

 _These images are much larger than I would think necessary,_ she thought. For the few months she lived and worked in the Asgard library, she had only paid attention to the data ink on her arms — there is where the principle information for her current project was stored. Besides, her portable data reader was hand held. She couldn’t easily use it to decrypt the information stored on her back; she simply couldn’t reach by herself. So, she had mostly ignored them. _What sort of data did Laera put there, and how did she expect me to make use of it?_ _I need better equipment, or I will need to find other survivors. And how can I possibly do either?_ She shook her head as she pulled her nightshirt over her head. The older woman had been a gifted artist, as well as a master teacher and emotional anchor for hundreds of researchers and archivists. Sannaet needed that anchor now as much as she ever had. She ached from the lack, and from an unshakable sense she had not lived up to her teacher’s high standards. _Another failure._

She hung her clothes with more than usual care, lining everything up perfectly as a way to keep her mind occupied. She re-tidied the room to erase all signs of her morning dressing routine, arranged her dirty supper dishes carefully on the tray before they were taken away. When she finally decided to turn out the lights, she once again opted to sit in the chair rather than lie in bed, and she played with the handle of Frigga’s knife, feeling the warm amber, trying to remember the warmth of its previous owner. Anything to help ease her into sleep. Yet her brain would not turn off, as she fixated first on Loki’s detachment, then on her tattoos, then on the mental noise she had jousted with all day and would have to face again in the morning. She drifted off to sleep with a crowd of faces swimming in front of her own — all needy, all wanting favors, all smiling while hiding their tiger hearts.

*****

The corridors she wandered were no longer dark, pokey halls. Instead they were brightly lit marble chambers — vast in scope, lined with columns so tall they disappeared into clouds overhead. _They are coming!_ She ran in search of some nook in which to hide, a corner to smash herself into, but there was nothing. Walls curved away without any corners or doorways, just an endless blank barrier. “You cannot hide, Little Rabbit, we are coming.” Closer, always closer, until the room narrowed claustrophobically and ended in a door that would not open.

*****

Sannaet forced herself awake and unfolded herself from the chair. The stars had just begun to fade in the pre-dawn twilight, and she listened to the relative silence of a city still mostly asleep. Pulling out Frigga’s knife, she ran her thumb along the smooth handle as she searched for Loki’s heart next door. He was also awake. Brooding. Detached.

She closed her eyes against some dust that must have gotten lodged there, and tried once more to find sleep.


	5. Of Obligations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "As the time came to return to court, adrenaline came rushing through her; her breathing became quick and shallow, her pupils dilated, her chest constricted. I’ll just go in to wash the sweat from my hands, she told herself. She walked stiffly to the washroom, locked the door, and simply did not come out."

_“We will discharge our duty.” Cymbeline, III.7_

 

The following day she again awoke earlier than she would have been called on to do, which gave her time to bathe, and to at least stare at her breakfast if not eat it. She had little appetite, even after the tiny supper she had eaten the night before. She picked at the fruit, trying to force a few calories down, knowing she would need something in her stomach to face the long morning, but it did not sit well. If possible, she was more anxious than the day before. Perhaps because she knew what to expect, and dreaded the repetition.

Ragna appeared once more, insisting that Sannaet wear something different than the day before, and exchanging the jewels for new ones — amber this time, that lay warm on her skin. Somehow she also managed to arrange Sannaet’s hair in an equally elaborate, but distinctly different way than she had yesterday.

Once court commenced, everything seemed like a miserable re-play of the day before. She sat in plain sight of the full court, and everyone except Loki seemed to watch her every move. As each petitioner approached the throne, she could see how they glanced deferentially in her direction, hoping to catch her eye, and perhaps engage her sympathy and potential influence. She could feel their hearts as they hungered for affirmation, or were jealous of her place. Perhaps because she had slept so poorly, perhaps because she had eaten little, she felt exposed and vulnerable with even more intensity than the day before. In her anxiety, the emotional noise of the court mutated into a massive, incoherent ocean — no single heart discernible from the others, all equally loud. Sorrow, desire, suspicion, joy, jealousy, all flowed one into the other in a way that made it difficult for her to follow the conversations she witnessed. To conserve energy, she schooled her face into a stoic neutrality which saved her the trouble of reacting to those conversations in any meaningful way. During the whole of the morning, she produced only one image: a portrait of Loki so detailed one could almost count his eyelashes, and trace each fine line of engraving on his torque.

She returned to her room as the court broke for lunch, moving through the back corridors shadowed by her security guard. She stared at her food, but left it untouched. As the time came to return to court, adrenaline came rushing through her; her breathing became quick and shallow, her pupils dilated, her chest constricted. _I’ll just go in to wash the sweat from my hands_ , she told herself. She walked stiffly to the washroom, locked the door, and simply did not come out.

*****

As the procession reached the front of the court room, all eyes focused on Loki — Sannaet’s chair remained empty. How would he react?

As he reached the top step he saw her empty seat. He stopped, furrowed his brows, and looked questioningly at Odin, who had no answer for the silent question that passed between them. Loki had felt her anxiety, but assumed that she would push through it, as she had the day before. He felt for her heart: panic, he might even have called it fear, but it was distinctly different than the terror he had sensed when she was under attack. Reassured that she was not in physical danger, he stepped closer to Odin and asked in a low voice, “If you’ll agree, Allfather, I would like to ask that the Lady Sif go check on our guest to see what has delayed her.” Odin nodded, and Sif made her way out of the court. Loki’s own heart remained divided, and his pride demanded that he not appear weak in front of the court.

*****

Sannaet did not answer the door when Sif knocked. Nor did she respond when Sif barged into the main rooms shouting for her. Only when the warrior began pounding on the washroom door did she finally master her voice enough to make her excuses — a half truth in the hope of being left alone: “I am not feeling well — a bit of a headache. Please offer my excuses to the court. I will return again in the morning, I am sure.”

“Shall I send for a healer?”

“No, please don’t. It’s not something a healer could help with. I just need some rest.” _Please, please, please don’t send for a healer._

Sif did not entirely believe her, but she bore her message back to the court, anyway, whispering it in Loki’s ear during a particularly long panegyric by a young bard who had not learned the virtue of self editing.

Loki’s lips drew into a tight, thin line as he listened, a look he erased from his face as he turned to face the court once more. After a few more minutes of truly hideous poetry, he turned to Odin and requested a recess. Odin quickly glanced at the remaining docket, glanced at the painfully sincere poet in front of them, and agreed. Not much of consequence was scheduled for the remainder of the afternoon, and the assembly was clearly just as glad to be spared any more of the young bard’s efforts as Loki was.

*****

As he let himself into her rooms, Loki was equally concerned and irritated. Concerned because he had felt the full force of her panic attack, knew it to be real and overwhelming. Irritated because a) what the hell did she have to be afraid of, and b) why could she not just push through it like she had before, and c) why did he have to feel so worried about it? His own vulnerability gnawed at him, and felt like weakness. Such neediness had cost him dearly in the past.

As he walked through her rooms, he took note of how different it seemed from a week ago. Her lunch was untouched, her bed not slept in. Those tools she had not carried with her into court were arranged with obsessive neatness, the remainder of the rooms so carefully arranged as to seem un-lived in, even the clothes in the closet were lined up with near mathematical precision. The only thing out of place was a chair sitting by the window, draped by a rumpled blanket — evidence of her insomnia. He walked to the closed washroom door. “Sannaet,” he paused, “Sannaet, Sif tells me you are not well.”

Silence. He knew she was there, felt her heart to be awake, and sensed that the panic had subsided somewhat, though her tension was still high. He frowned, took off his ceremonial helmet, and then picked the lock.

She was bunched up in a corner of the room, the color drained from her face. She did not look over at him, but kept her eyes straight ahead as she spoke. “I’m sorry. I tried. I got ready. I just thought I would come wash my hands, but then I just couldn’t make myself go back. It was so nice and quiet here,” and here she drew her brows together, “it just felt so much safer in this little room with no one looking at me. I will be better tomorrow, I’m sure.” Her voice was quiet, but she had mastered herself well enough that it was steady. She intended to sound reassuring.

Whatever he had expected, this wasn’t it. Hysterical tears, perhaps, though that did seem out of character. An angry diatribe, perhaps — that seemed much more likely, especially given their parting two days ago. But this quiet determination following so soon after a paralyzing terror, that he had not expected. He sat down next to her, back against the same wall, his arm not quite close enough to touch hers. “Explain all this to me.” It was a request, not an attack.

“I am not sure I can.” She smiled weakly, and rested her forehead on her hand. “In that enormous room, with all of those hearts watching me — it’s just wrong. ‘Safety in anonymity’ — that’s a mantra recited to us from the moment we begin our training. I have lived by that motto for hundreds of years, and it has kept me safe — saved my life dozens of times. To be exposed and on display like that is, well I don’t have any other words for it — it’s just wrong. And The Enemy is still out there — I feel your concerns about him, too, even though Thor has cleared his minions off my world, and even if you may eventually decide that protecting me might be more a matter of pride for you than of affection at this point” — he bristled at this reference to his coldness, and she briefly glanced up at him before returning her gaze to the wall opposite. “Well, that’s a choice you will have to make. I know it’s complicated — what you _want_ . . . what _I_ want . . . well, it’s hard work, isn’t it? And neither of us is used to working with a partner. —“

He said nothing as she paused, so she went on, “At any rate, I cannot get the lingering fear of Them out of my heart. Public exposure magnified those fears. I don’t know. It was not rational. I could not control it.” _And I have lost everyone,_ she added silently, _everyone that counted, anyway_.

She paused again before adding, “The nightmares came back.”

“I know” and his admission made her wince. Even though she had assumed it was so, it was still painful to hear him admit that he had felt her need, and had chosen to ignore it.

She breathed in, still focusing on the wall, rather than looking at him. “Fatigue made everything worse. Perhaps I can sleep the rest of the afternoon while it’s light — that will get me through until the court recesses for its feast days. Then, I can sleep during the day, as well. By the time the court returns after the hiatus, everything should be fine. I will be able to concentrate once again.” Her voice was flat as she worked to remain stoic — to mirror his own facade of dispassion.

“So you attend merely from a sense of obligation.” It was a jab in response to her distancing, an attempt to elicit a reaction.

She shrugged, unwilling to rise to his bait. “I said I would go. You will lose face if I do not. So I will go.”

“And that’s all?” And those three words laid out all of the ambiguity that roiled within him, and between them — a question that begged to be contradicted, and a statement that erected a barrier.

She smiled sadly, “What more do you want it to be?” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes before she added, “You can feel my heart and what it wants. If you listen, you know. Perhaps the better question might be ‘what more are you and I capable of?’”

He looked down at her, recognized the truth in what she said, and his demeanor softened. He picked up her hand and absently stroked it, kissed it, moved her knuckles across his cheek, but remained silent.

She continued, still facing forward, still talking to the floor, rather than him. “We both know my injuries — we have never spoken about your own. There is an enormous black hole inside of you.” She glanced up at his profile briefly before she continued. “I don’t know what happened after you let go of Odin’s spear and dropped off into nothingness. No one could find out. But it must have been unspeakable. Few souls can endure sensory deprivation for even a few days. Yours must have lasted much, much longer than that. And I cannot bear to imagine what must have happened after They found you. I do not know how one recovers from such an experience.”

He kissed her fingers once more before he admitted quietly, “I do not know, either.” He paused for a long while, his face grim, her hand pressed against his mouth, before he finally concluded, “We will have to discover that together, I suspect.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, fingers laced together, sorting out the pain, exploring the emotional landscape between them. Eventually he broke the silence: “Would you sleep better if you had some company?”

She leaned onto his arm and closed her eyes: “I suspect I might.”


	6. Of Energy and Inertia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once the brouhaha ended, she began to think more seriously about the data ink on her back. Clearly there was more there than just information relevant to her own work — the images covered nearly the length and breadth of her back, and were unusually intricate — but she needed better equipment than her own if she was to access that data. She needed to go back home and search the wreckage to see if anything could be salvaged.

_“Sweet smoke of rhetoric.” Love’s Labours Lost, III.1_

 

With a few hours of decent sleep each night, Sannaet survived the remaining sessions at court. The color came back to her face, and her anxiety remained manageable. She even felt well enough to attend the banquet that closed the events — in a gown (green, of course), new shoes, and decked with a set of dazzling emeralds.

￼

In fact, by the time court ended, they had become a rather formidable team. He began listening to her heart more carefully, and became adept at matching her emotions to subtle changes in her body language. At the same time, the more tightly connected their hearts became, the more Sannaet’s anxiety receded. Her ability to focus her attention and block out extraneous emotional noise became laser-like. Nothing escaped them as the parade of petitioners and complainants dwindled.

In fact, their partnership could even be described as too effective, as Loki collected information about some Asgardians that was damning, but not actionable. The two of them knew with utter certainty that several of the nobles were not simply weasels, but downright snakes, hiding activities that were unconscionable. Yet Odin refused to act of the information Loki provided, because “there is no proof. I cannot arrest anyone simply because someone has a very bad feeling about him. There must be evidence. In most of these cases, you don’t even know what it is they’re hiding, just that you think they’re doing something horrid.”

Loki was quickly losing patience: “For most people, a very bad feeling would indeed be no evidence, but Sannaet is not just anyone — she is an empath.” It was the evening of the court’s eighth day, and Loki and Odin had locked themselves together in a room to discuss what decisions would be announced the following day. Odin kept his seat at the large table, while Loki paced in frustration.

“In the eyes of the law, her testimony as an empath would still not carry sufficient weight to convict anyone of the charges you have made. There must be physical proof, or the testimony of witnesses. Not even the alleged victims of these alleged crimes have come forward to accuse these men, men who are, might I add, powerful nobility with no histories of criminal behavior.”

Loki stopped in mid-stride, and turned to face Odin with eyes narrowed, “Are you implying that I am making all of this up?”

“No, I am not. I am implying that there is nothing we can do legally until either the victims are willing to step forward, or you can bring the court solid evidence.” Odin’s word was final, and the iron look on his face stated clearly that he would not be persuaded from his position.

“Frigga would never have permitted scum such as these free reign at court,” Loki retorted while his jaw worked to bite back a more lengthy reply. Odin’s face flushed, and he began to rise from his seat, but Loki strode out of the room to seek out a quiet spot to seethe. The shine of politics now wore thin for him as the novelty of intrigue was inexorably replaced with the drudgery of bureaucracy. _What good is it to rule, if you have to follow rules — nothing ever gets done._

*****

Sannaet was pleased to see the end of the court sessions for different reasons. Once the brouhaha ended, she began to think more seriously about the data ink on her back. Clearly there was more there than just information relevant to her own work — the images covered nearly the length and breadth of her back, and were unusually intricate — but she needed better equipment than her own if she was to access that data. She needed to go back home and search the wreckage to see if anything could be salvaged.

But she couldn’t go alone.

“Loki,” she began, as they shared supper one evening, “would it be possible to take a small expedition to my home world, and look through the ruins?”

“I suppose so, but would it be worth the risk? If merely sitting through court gave you panic attacks, why would you want to go back to that place?”

“I need to find out if there is anything that can be salvaged — equipment, data, or decryption devices.”

“Why?”

“There must be survivors — a diaspora — that could be gathered together to rebuild . . . I don’t even know what . . . something.”

“You would all be completely wiped out. You’re a historian — how many examples have you run across where an enemy uses some sort of ruse to gather all of his enemies into one room and then murder them all? I’m sure you can rattle off a dozen or so without even pausing. Even returning for a salvage operation could be extremely dangerous.”

“That’s why I need to bring protection with me.”

“Oh, I see. That would be my job, I suppose. That’s all well and good, but what if you do find information? If you find it, then it can be taken from you.”

“No. It’s encrypted.” He leaned forward when she said this, looking carefully at her face.

“You said, ‘It is’ — not ‘it would be’. You already have something.”

 _Crap. Did I say that? Loki, you are a sneaky bastard._ She glared at him, as he curled his lips in triumph like he’d won a prize.

“Maybe. I’m not sure. The only way to find out is to find something that will de-encrypt it.”

“De-encrypt what? What is it that you may or may not have?”

She let her breath out in frustration, and pressed her lips together in a definitive refusal to speak.

“I’m just trying to be helpful,” he added innocently. “Asgard has many ways of detecting and deciphering codes.”

“Not this code.”

“Why should I help you, when you won’t trust me?” He was deliberately bating her now, and her voice rose in frustration as she responded.

“Because it’s not my secret to tell. I can’t decide to share a secret for an entire race of beings who aren’t here to vote on it.”

“You see? That’s why democracies are inherently flawed. No one can ever make any decisions without taking a vote on everything. It’s completely inefficient.” Sannaet rolled her eyes, choosing otherwise to ignore his editorial. But then he paused as he remembered something. “This has something to do with the tattoos on your back, doesn’t it?” She managed to avoid reacting physically, but her heart betrayed her, and he felt her frustration. “Oh I felt that — I’m right, aren’t I?” He grinned like a child who’s just figured out a new way to annoy the little girl next door. She scowled. “Well,” he crowed, “I think I can now put a few pieces together without any exposition.”

“Don’t!” She interrupted. “Don’t even say it out loud. Any survivors could be placed at enormous risk if it leaks out. Not just risks from the Enemy, but from the beings they live among and study. There is nothing that we do that is more closely guarded.”

“Not even that disappearing act you do when you don’t want Sif to drag you off to the practice field?”

“What?”

“You see, love? I know more than you think.”

She retorted quickly as she scrunched up her face at him: “It is positively creepy that you know that. How do you know that?”

“You have mentioned that empathic connections are a mixed blessing, have you not? I notice things, now. You are no longer Nadia; you are _someone_.” He was still gloating. “Can all of you do that?”

“No. I’ve only met two other empaths who could hide that way. There’s a trick to it.”

“A very clever trick. I wish I could do that.”

“Well, good luck,” she shot back. “It can only be done if you can let go of your ego, so I’m not worried that you’ll pick it up anytime soon.” She made a face at him.

“Ooh hoo! I win that round.” He was practically giddy.

*****

He was, in fact, so pleased with himself that he went to speak with Odin that afternoon about putting together a small expeditionary team to travel with Sannaet back to her home world. The conversation did not go well. Odin agreed to her travel, and agreed to send a security detail and a few assistants with her to help salvage what she could, but he would not agree to Loki’s taking part in said expedition — the heir apparent, he pronounced, needed to remain in Asgard.

By the time he returned to Sannaet’s rooms, Loki had worked himself into explosive knots, and was already planning ways to go without Odin’s sanction.

“So you just plan to play the weasel, and go anyway?” Sannaet was very much annoyed at his childishness as she watched him pace the floor.

“Of course.”

“Wrong.”

He stopped short and turned to face her, “What do you mean, ‘wrong’? He can’t stop me.”

“Whether he can or not is beside the point. You cannot risk an open breech with him so soon after your reconciliation. It will confirm everyone’s worst fears.”

“Irrelevant. Their opinions do not matter.”

“Quoth the Sovereign Destined for Overthrow.” Sarcasm was becoming her second language.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just because you’re in charge now doesn’t mean you can’t be removed from power later — unless, of course, you believe in the Divine Right of Kings, and I wish you good luck with that one. I can share with you a long list of monarchs for whom the angels in heaven did not, in fact, appear from the skies to defend.”

“So you think I should just sit here and twiddle my thumbs while you go wander around a world that is most likely riddled with a wide variety of nasty traps?”

“I didn’t say that, did I? No. You need to go back to Odin and negotiate with him.”

“Oh I don’t think so. I don’t intend to beg him for anything.”

“I didn’t say ‘beg,’ I said ‘negotiate.’ There is a difference.”

“It is a distinction without a difference.”

“You have just begun the battle, and you’ve already leapt directly from “step one: he’s insulted my honor” to “step 8: annihilate opponent with the largest weapon in my arsenal.’ How many effective warriors do you know who pull out their must destructive weapon first?”

“Thor,” clearly feeling as though he had made the definitive statement on the topic, as he took a seat opposite hers.

“Pugh! Since when did you decide to use your brother as a role model?”

He glared at her in silence.

“You are an incredibly skilled orator. You are enormously intelligent. Use those to your advantage. If you want him to give you something, you need to make him feel as though it was his idea. If he feels as though he is competing with you, then you must make him feel as though he has won.” Loki rolled his eyes. “Seriously. You must have done it a thousand times when you were growing up — it is the primary survival skill of the youngest child; I watched my sister get away with it countless times. Just dress it up a bit and you have the most valuable asset in any bureaucrat’s arsenal. It’s even a joke on Midgard: what is the definition of a diplomat? Someone who can tell you to go to hell so that you look forward to the trip. Don’t even try to tell me that you couldn’t do that. You have to figure out how to make him want to let you go — better yet, given your skills, you ought to be able to make him order you to go, because he will believe it’s in his best interest.”

“Are you sure you aren’t a diplomat?”

She smiled a teeny tiny little smile. “Yes. I’m sure. Now go away and figure something out. I’ll expect a full report this evening.”


	7. Of Looking for Lost Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They descended deep into the least used portions of the building. Much of the space had been used for compact storage, and surprisingly, some of these rooms appeared to be only partially burned out — apparently even destroying things gets boring after a while, and the Enemy had been less thorough here than in other places. Here were stored the remnants of worlds otherwise lost to history, their people extinct and forgotten — even their records relegated to the far reaches of the Archive to make room for civilizations still living and dynamic."

_“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought  I summon up remembrance of things past,  I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,  And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.” — Sonnet 30_

 

Of course it worked.

A few days of planning saw them standing in front of what had once been the grandest information repository in all the nine realms at the heart of the once beautiful and sophisticated city of Helsingor. In addition to Sannaet and Loki, they landed with a group a little over a dozen strong, including several security experts, and a handful of information experts.

Small animals bolted away from them as they appeared. Nature had begun taking up residence in the wreckage left from the destruction. Plants had sprouted up in odd places, gardens grew uncontrolled, birds nested in broken balconies. The cityscape had taken on a surreal visage as it was reclaimed by the landscape.

“Where would you like us to start?” Asked the woman to Sannaet’s left.

“We will begin at the beginning — we need to go through the lobby of the Archive and make sure it’s free of traps and surveillance devices. After that we can go into the basement and begin some general reconnaissance. Clearly, we don’t have the time to search the entire structure, but we have a general idea as to which areas the Enemy had taken up more or less permanent residence, and where they made their most extensive searches — we can go through these very quickly, as I rather doubt there’s much left of value in those areas. I have some ideas as to where outdated equipment used to be stored, and workshops where malfunctioning units were sent for repair. We can concentrate most of our time on these.”

Once it had been determined that the remains of the lobby were safe, they set up a sort of base camp there. The 3D map Loki had discovered during the rescue mission was, surprisingly, still functional, and Sannaet used it to orient the team and plan out the search. “Unfortunately, this map only displays the areas of the Archive that were open to the public. There is an extensive section over here to the north that isn’t on this map.” At this point, Sannaet pulled out several book-sized devices. When she unfolded one of these, a holographic map arose from its surface that detailed a network of corridors and storage rooms that did not appear on the public floor plan. “I have tried to reconstruct it for you from memory, but my sense of direction gets a little confused when I’ve been underground for days at a time, so my rendering may not be entirely accurate. We will have to update the maps as we go. I’m sorry.”

“We will make sure that at least two exits are guarded at all times. Please make sure you know the routes to both from wherever you happen to be working at any given time.” This announcement came from the senior military officer, as he glanced at Loki for approval, who nodded. “Initially, these two stairwells will be the designated exits, until we have better information as to where you will be searching.” He indicated two spots on the public map at opposite ends of the ground floor. “They are both located close to exit points from the building, and out of sight lines from one another, so they would be difficult to compromise simultaneously.”

Sannaet felt compelled to reinforce the need for caution: “Never work without a security escort. I know you’ve all trained in basic self-defense, but we simply don’t know whether the Enemy left behind traps or warning systems.”

*****

The sweep through those areas that had been occupied by the Enemy was quickly done — nothing of use had been left, nearly everything had been destroyed — burned, vaporized, or smashed for the pure joy of destruction. They finished their survey of these areas within a day, clearing traps as they went. Sannaet felt sure that little could be gained from a detailed search of the remaining public sections, either, so they decided to concentrate their efforts on the north end of the basement.

They descended deep into the least used portions of the building. Much of the space had been used for compact storage, and surprisingly, some of these rooms appeared to be only partially burned out — apparently even destroying things gets boring after a while, and the Enemy had been less thorough here than in other places. Here were stored the remnants of worlds otherwise lost to history, their people extinct and forgotten — even their records relegated to the far reaches of the Archive to make room for civilizations still living and dynamic.

As most of the party searched these areas, Loki often disappeared for hours at a time conducting his own reconnaissance. He would ensure a given space was secure and that Sannaet was fully occupied, then he would wander off, reappearing two or three hours later just as the team was ready to move to a new area. Sannaet found herself having a recurring conversation with him as they got ready to sleep in the evenings:

“What are you looking for?” She would inquire.

“Puzzle pieces,” he would respond cryptically.

“And did you find any?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

Self-satisfaction danced across the surface of his heart, and his tone remained playful during each interrogation, but Sannaet decided she could wait to question him more closely until after they returned to Asgard. She didn’t want to push the matter, because, despite his self-congratulations, he was also very much on edge. In fact, the more time he spent underground, the more irritable he became, hyperaware of tiny noises. He was also sleeping poorly, and on a few of his worse days, seemed to have a haunted look about his eyes. The windowless underground seemed to dredge up deeply unpleasant memories that clever discoveries could only push away for so long.

Beneath the long-neglected archives of dead worlds were the technological dumping grounds for the facility. Here the team found equipment that had been replaced by upgrades, but that no one had the heart to throw away or recycle. The room itself looked as though someone had set off a grenade near the door, but then hadn’t bothered to see whether the room had been entirely wiped out. At the back of the room were shelves that remained untouched — neat little boxes on row after row of shelves full of outdated gadgetry.

“Why did you people keep all of this junk?” asked Loki, as Sannaet rhapsodized about some long-forgotten gadget that she had used as a journeyman.

“We are historians, yes?” she smiled nostalgically. “This is our own history, of a sort. And I suppose someone must have thought that some of it might come in handy one day. Nothing was sent here if it was broken, just when it became obsolete.”

Beyond nostalgia, though, she found little she would take with her. The data storage and reading devices she found pre-dated the data ink she needed to de-crypt. It was a room full of novelties, but nothing useful. After the first week, Sannaet began to think that she was wasting her time, and Loki’s irritability increased. “It would help, you realize, if you would tell us what we were looking for,” he remarked snidely. She looked up at him and felt deflated, knowing he spoke for the rest of the search team, as well. They had been much more interested in the contents of the compact storage units — the archives that told stories of lost civilizations — than in Sannaet’s fruitless search through unfamiliar gadgetry.

“Perhaps we should move our search elsewhere.” She suggested. “They may have concentrated their destruction here and left some remote sites relatively intact. Maybe we should leave the Archive.”

“I think that is a splendid plan,” echoed Loki — he was more than ready to get above ground again.


	8. Of Precious Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They landed their airships in the town square at the steps of the archive, and as soon as she disembarked, Sannaet’s knees threatened to buckle under her, and her breath caught in her chest. The devastation here affected her at a primal level — Helsingor was merely a place where she had worked. Holbec was part of her DNA, its landscape as familiar as the breath in her lungs."

_“The art of our necessities is strange_

_That can make vile things precious.” King Lear, III.2_

 

They moved their search to a satellite office of the archive in the much smaller town of Holbec, 2,000 miles away from Helsingor. Sannaet had grown up there, and worked in its small archive for several years, though she hadn’t told this to her Asgardian support staff. The night before they moved from their Helgingor worksite, she stayed up late trying to steel herself against what she might see. She curled herself up into the curve of Loki’s body and wrapped his arms around herself tightly, as if to anchor herself against an oncoming storm. They didn’t speak. She had described her hometown to him during the marathon painting sessions before her abduction. He knew no words to protect her; he just held on.

Once they arrived, they discovered that, though the population had been wiped out, the buildings hadn’t been leveled in the way the capitol had been. The destruction seemed almost lackadaisical — once the inhabitants had been eliminated, the Enemy had moved on.

They landed their airships in the town square at the steps of the archive, and as soon as she disembarked, Sannaet’s knees threatened to buckle under her, and her breath caught in her chest. The devastation here affected her at a primal level — Helsingor was merely a place where she had worked. Holbec was part of her DNA, its landscape as familiar as the breath in her lungs.

Loki walked her over to the steps of the archive and had her sit down, then took over the job of directing the team as they set up their camp and began scanning for surveillance devices and traps. By the time they needed specific direction from Sannaet, she had recovered enough self-presence to concentrate on the task at hand, and began explaining what they could expect once they entered the building, where things had been stored, and what places they could ignore.

This search proved more rewarding. In a back room she discovered transport equipment that was wiped of its coordinates, but hardly damaged in the attack, at all. She also discovered new data readers and recorders, left alone because they looked like tattoo and graphic design equipment. “Why do you want to retrieve art supplies?” the archaeologist asked.

“I am an artist.” She replied cryptically.

Her mood remained dark. As a child, she haunted these offices, hanging around her mother’s desk. As an adolescent, she did volunteer work as an intern, clocking in hundreds of hours in data transfer work and conducting public tours of the archive. Her childhood home was little more than a mile from their campsite; her little sister’s closer still. She both longed and dreaded going to see what remained.

In contrast, Loki’s mood had lifted as soon as they left the basements of the Archive. He became somewhat interested in the tech that they had discovered, though he still remained wary of potential threats, and he kept up his habit of going off to explore on his own. At one point she knew he had brought something up from the basements here, but he kept it well out of sight, and she still felt it best not to press for information until they returned to Asgard. She wanted the rest of the salvage team to learn as little as possible about what they were looking for, and so let him have his secrets for now.

To be safe, they did not linger over their finds, but sent crates full of treasures back to Asgard as they were packed. After a few days, Loki decided that, as it appeared she had found what she most needed, they should end the expedition. Sannaet agreed. They sent most of the team back with a final crate full of equipment. The pair remained for another day with a skeleton security support of three.

During the early afternoon, she asked Loki to go with her around the rest of the town. “Would you come with me on a short tour?” She asked.

He agreed immediately, “I was wondering why you had waited this long.”

“I didn’t want to say anything while the others were still here; it’s too close to my heart. I couldn’t bear to have that many witnesses. My father lived here all my life — his house is just a short walk from here; my sister’s, as well.” She concentrated hard, as she tried to reconstruct in her mind how the houses had been laid out, and which one, exactly, had been her home, and the home of her sister. “It looks so very different. All of the landmarks are distorted.” Loki studied her as she searched. Her heart sent out great chaotic waves he found hard to process, and he felt impotent in the face of her losses.

“Here.” She stopped in front of a yard full of flattened wreckage. “Just here would have been my little sister’s house and studio. I think I told you she was a sculptor. She linked her heart and had two little ones.”

“Linked?” He gave her a puzzled look.

“Sophia was not a researcher, but she was an empath. And when an empath decides to commit to a life partner, he or she can choose to have a traditional civil ceremony — just a marriage — or she can choose to go through a specific ritual with the help of a spirit worker. It tethers their hearts together. From then onwards, they can always feel one another, regardless of distance, and if the link is to a non-empath, then that person becomes aware of their partner’s heart as if they were empathic. It is much more than a civic union — the link persists for as long as they live. It cannot be undone, even if their legal marriage fails.”

At some point during this recital she realized she was describing precisely the link between herself and Loki, and as the implications sunk in, she swallowed hard, her words got smaller, and came more slowly.

_How did I not realize what we had done? Will he think I tricked him? Will he be angry?_

A hundred insecurities began dropping into her heart until she could no longer sense anything but her own fears — she couldn’t distinguish his heart at all. Loki looked at her as though he would open up her soul and read her thoughts directly from the source. Her face became hot under the intensity of his gaze, but her own jumbled heart made it impossible to tell whether he welcomed this revelation about their relationship.

“Never undone?” He repeated quietly.

She looked away from his face toward the destruction next to them, “No, never — ’til death do they part,” and she gestured at the wreckage of the house, still pretending she was talking about her sister. She blinked at the dust in her eyes, and turned away to lean on the fence.

￼

He stood quietly as he processed this new information, staring at her back while she looked intently at her hands. After a very long while, he moved to stand next to her, resting his hand on her shoulder, caressing the nape of her neck with his thumb. It seemed a declaration of sorts, but he spoke as if their conversation had never happened.

“She had children, then?” He asked.

“Yes,” she answered, a bit dazed by their exchange. She took a breath to re-orient herself and focus on the view in front of her.

Her breath caught in her throat once the force of what she saw crashed in on her. The destruction seemed surreally random. The walls of the house had been blown outward and the roof collapsed flat, yet the fence around the yard was perfectly intact. The bushes still grew and bore flowers. There were still pieces of toys in the yard. She cut short a sob with a great, sudden breath, and put her hand over her mouth. There. Just there was a little person’s shoe. She went into the yard and began to stoop to pick it up before Loki stopped her short with a hand on her shoulder, “Stop.” — the foot was still in it. He pulled her away from the yard and urged her down the street. She stared at the remains, walking backwards while she stumbled off, looking forward again only after they turned the corner and he slipped an arm around her waist to keep her from tripping.

She stopped for a minute, both to catch her breath and to regain her bearings. He held her against his chest while she inhaled deeply. After a few minutes she stepped back and wiped her face. “Can we go a few more blocks north?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“Of course.” She flashed him a wavering smile before she walked quickly up the street, hoping for something she knew to be impossible.

As they walked, though, a dark place opened up in his heart. Loki found the intensity of her grief deeply disturbing, and made note of her every feature as she preceded him up the street — at what points her stride seemed to falter, where her gaze lingered or recoiled, how each muscle of her face reflected another loss or repressed memory. What he saw released demons he despised more than any others — helplessness and guilt. Nothing he would ever do could repair her loss. At the same time, the irony was not lost on him that her losses mirrored the damage he had, in fact, inflicted on countless others just a few years before. _She’s right_ , he thought to himself, _this whole empathy thing is absolutely a mixed blessing._ And the idea that the link between them was irrevocable, that both unsettled and steadied him at the same time. There was nothing he could do about it; on the other hand, neither could she.

She counted the streets, and found a street sign bent double to help orient herself once more. She counted the wrecked houses as she walked faster up another street, until she halted abruptly at an empty shell of a house. The roof was somehow still supported by a drunken frame, the windows all shattered. “Here.” She said quietly. “Right here is where I grew up. I played in this yard. Got in trouble for painting graffiti on that fence.” She grabbed his hand once more and wandered slowly up the walkway to where the front door had been, stopped herself, then picked her way through the wreckage to the back, where a door still stood, holding up a listing wall. Loki lagged slightly behind, even as she kept hold of his hand. His eyes darted over the yard, fence, and rickety house, taking in as much detail as possible. “I never used the front door. That’s where Father kept his studio. This went right into the kitchen, where I could snitch treats while he worked.”

Sannaet moved cautiously to the door and peeked in without touching anything. She glanced back at Loki before moving to go inside, but was brought up short when he refused to follow. He looked critically at the house: “It’s not safe — that structure could collapse at any moment.”

“It made it through the winter storms. It was very well built — my uncle was a master builder. I had actually hoped that it had survived the attack with less damage.” Here she actually laughed at herself, “Stupid, I know. But he could build anything — I had convinced myself that his work could survive the apocalypse itself.” She tugged on his hand and pulled him with her. “I think I will take the risk,” she insisted, as she stepped gingerly inside. He followed her closely, carefully looking into every corner, trying to assess their stability as they went, and memorizing every detail for future reference.

Virtually everything was broken and scorched. It was difficult to tell what had been where. Animals had taken shelter there over the seasons and left their own debris. She moved from the kitchen into the living area of the house. Pieces of her father’s paintings were scattered about the floor, some had been soiled on by wildlife, others ruined by water leaking through the wrecked roof.

Sannaet, however, was searching for something specific now. She moved to the side into her father’s bedroom. She carefully picked through the debris, and pushed aside a small chest of drawers — there! A set of miniatures scattered on the floor, one of each family member — father, brother, sister, mother, her. She gathered them up as though they had been rare gems.

“Look!” She turned to Loki to smile and share what she had found. “I thought I would never see these again,” she said and wrapped them in a scarf she found in a broken drawer. Her enthusiasm was infectious and he smiled in return. Then she turned again and started rifling through the dresser drawers until she found a second prize. A small jewelry box. “There isn’t anything valuable,” she admitted, “but there are some trinkets of Mother’s, and, I think, yes, here it is,” she smiled broadly even as tears pooled in her eyes, and she pulled out a necklace of deep red gems. “Do you recognize it? Maybe not. You might have been too small when she gave it to my mother.” She looked up at him with enormous tears beginning to drip down her face. “It was Frigga’s.”

He took it from her as though the slightest mistake might shatter it, eyes wide, moving from the jewels to her face and back again. Then he smiled, beckoned her to step closer and carefully placed it around her neck. “Synchronicity,” he said, and kissed her on the forehead.

On their way out, she went through her father’s studio, and found a set of brushes still relatively undamaged; she took these, as well, and they walked back to their campsite.

*****

The next morning, they finished packing up and began directing the final clean up. There was little left to do. The landscape had the quiet one only finds in a wilderness area.

**_Crack!_ **

Suddenly out of the silence came the snap of a spatial disturbance and the air in front of the small archive shimmered. The group snapped to attention, and Loki pushed Sanneat behind him. Out of a portal appeared a pitiful creature who fell down the short flight of stairs in front of the archive even as it materialized. At the same instant Sanneat fell to her knees and gasped for breath, clinging to Loki’s coat tails for support.

Loki nodded to two of the guards who ran over to the creature who had fallen out of the void. “It’s a humanoid.” One shouted back. “Alive but very badly wounded.”

“Bring it here.”

They carried him away from the building, within the transport range of the Bifrost. “We should leave immediately.” Loki decided. “Heimdahl, open the Bifrost, now!”

Once they arrived, Loki acted decisively: “Send for the healers, quickly,” Loki directed, before turning to look at the being they had rescued.

Sannaet was reaching out her hand to touch his cheek, “How did this happen? Who did this?”

Blood covered the body, smeared the face and matted the hair so as to render whomever it was virtually unrecognizable. The back was red and raw, oozing still from fresh wounds — the skin had been flayed right off.

As the healers arrived to carry him away, Sannaet whispered, “I know him.”


	9. Of Cyphers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sannaet now had the names of 99 colleagues who could very well have escaped the destruction, and it was possible that each of them also had contact information for 99 more."

_“Thou canst tell why one’s nose stands I’ th’ middle on’s face?_  
No.   
Why, to keep one's eyes of either side's nose, that what a man cannot smell out, 'a may spy into.” — King Lear, I.5.

 

Loki lifted Sannaet from her knees as the injured man was carried to the hospital and held her arm to steady her as their eyes trailed after the healers: “Who is he?”

She was still trying to catch her breath. The intensity of the victim’s pain and terror had completely incapacitated her — it was a blessing for both of them when he passed out. “Aleth.” She paused, again trying to calm her heartbeat and gather her thoughts. Loki felt her trying to tamp down her emotions and gain distance. She swallowed hard before continuing. “He is a researcher. He worked for a few years in Helsingor before he decided that he preferred life in a smaller town. He transferred to Holbec and worked there until he left on a research assignment about 50 years ago.”

“Where did he go?”

Loki felt her emotions shift slowly, determinedly, into a calculating dispassion: “I don’t even remember,” she replied with surprising dismissiveness. “A small world that had been neglected. I think he took up the project because it was so out of the way. He was not terribly sociable.” He studied her face as he felt her harden herself to Aleth’s suffering — closing him out of her heart. His forehead pulled together as he arrived at a blunt conclusion — “He hurt you.”

She turned away as she shook her head dismissively and blew a short laugh through pursed lips. But as he kept silent, she bit her lip and nodded a curt agreement. “Yes,” she paused again before adding, “He’s my brother.” She stood there silently for half a minute while Loki waited for her to elaborate, then she spat on the floor: “He’s my brother and a goddamn bastard.” Only then did she turn back around to face the shock on Loki’s face, before she began to pick up a few smaller items she had brought back to Asgard with her. She was, apparently, finished with the conversation.

When she declined to elaborate, Loki redirected the conversation: “Given his injuries, I would guess that the secret of the ink is no longer secret.” That slowed her forward progress a bit, as she remembered his bloody flesh. Loki felt her heart soften once more, if only slightly. Her face worked in knots as she struggled with a mess of contradictory emotions.

“Why would they not take all of him? Why not read the data and then leave him? Why do . . . _That_.” She couldn’t even name it.

“Well,” he reasoned dispassionately, “maybe they haven’t yet figured out how to decrypt the image. And skin is easier to carry around than a body.” He stopped short when Sannaet put her hands to her mouth to cover her reaction. He ran his hand through her hair to try and comfort her, “Let’s get you back home,” he concluded.

*****

The crates of equipment were all placed in a weapons depot, which, despite the gravity of new developments, made Sannaet smile when they told her. She spent a day cataloging their finds before having a larger, stand-alone contraption hauled up to her bedroom. When Loki came to see her later, he asked, “what is this, and why, of all places, would you want it here?”

“It’s a data reader, and this is the most private place I have. You’re the only visitor that comes back here. I don’t want anyone to ask any questions.”

“Fair enough. Would you rather keep it in my rooms?”

“No. You still have the staff come in and clean, don’t you? I told them ages ago that I would clean these rooms myself. No one comes in here but me and you.”

The reader was fairly sleek, though big. A flat, horizontal panel mounted on a base, it looked a bit like a projection screen with a stylus attached.

“I had hoped to find something that would read the data for me without my needing an extra pair of hands. Unfortunately, it looks as though someone will need to trace the images with the stylus. It could take several hours. Will you have time? I could wait for Aleth to recover enough to help me, but I feel as though I should start as soon as possible.” She hoped Loki would find the time; Aleth’s appearance made her project seem much more urgent than before. _I need to decipher this data as soon as possible — and I really don’t want to work with Aleth if I don’t have to._

Even if he hadn’t felt her heart, he would have urged her to work as quickly as possible. They needed to keep a step ahead of the Enemy. He was convinced that whomever it was had not figured out how to read the data ink — that they knew there was information, but not how to retrieve it. The only advantage was in speed.

“I will find the time.” He answered. “It could take a week or more before the healers allow your brother to leave their immediate care, and I agree that we need to recover this data as soon as possible. There is more there, I suspect, than cultural history.”

She smiled gratefully, and let out a sigh of relief. _If I’m lucky, we’ll be done before he’s even allowed out of bed._

*****

Sannaet and Loki dedicated their evenings to data retrieval — admittedly not a terribly romantic way to spend the time. Before they began re-tracing her back, though, Loki insisted that they run the stylus over the tiny image of the hanging man just beneath her collar bone. He seemed to have developed a bit of a fixation over the image, in fact, from the very beginning of their relationship. He had asked questions about it several times, questions she couldn’t answer, since she had never really thought about it much. To her it was just the mark of a researcher, no more. Several times, though, she had awoken to find him peering at it, and re-tracing it with his finger. As it turned out, there was a small amount of data embedded in the image — it seemed to be a fragment of a fairy tale. The text read:

               “Once upon a time there was a race of people who could build fantastical castles through the power of thought alone.”

“That’s it? What’s the rest of the story?” He asked her.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard it before.”

“Never?”

“No.”

“You mean to tell me that this fairy tale is embedded on the shoulder of every damn one of you, and you have no idea how the story begins or ends? How could you have never heard it before?”

“Well, stories get lost sometimes. Maybe it’s meant to remind us of that. So we’ll be careful that we don’t lose any more.” Her tone became a little bit defensive at his interrogation.

“I don’t believe that,” he retorted scornfully, “‘safety in anonymity’ — I’ll bet every one of you has a different fragment of the story, so that no one knows the whole thing. I’ll bet this is much more important than just some long-winded initiation ritual.”

“Maybe” she replied, but she remained skeptical.

As for the rest of the data, its significance was much more obvious. Names. Biographies. Locations. In total, the images she bore contained information about 99 fellow researchers, including detailed background information about their lives, their work, and where they could be found. It seems that, in the days leading up to the attack, the faculty at the Archives had located as many field researchers as they could and engrafted contact trees on their skin, along with “back up” copies of the researchers’ own projects. Each contact tree included 99 names, and no list overlapped any other except by one name. There was no way to tell how thorough they had been. There could be countless names that had been left unrecorded once the attack had begun. But Sannaet now had the names of 99 colleagues who could very well have escaped the destruction, and it was possible that each of them also had contact information for 99 more.

“How many field researchers were there?” Loki asked as they sat together digesting the information.

“Roughly 1% of the population — minus a handful who chose spirit work, and another handful who chose another life, entirely.”

“Like your sister.”

“Like my sister.”

She had re-set the miniatures in new frames and lined them up on her bureau. The family resemblance was strong — all three siblings and the father with brown, curly hair; all three siblings and the mother with dark, indigo eyes.

“You liked your sister.”

“Yes, I did, very much.”

“Your brother not so much.”

“No, not so much.” And her mouth became set in a tight, thin line.

“But you love him.”

“He is still my brother, despite the fact that he’s a pig.”

“We seem to have more in common all the time.”

“So it would appear,” and she smiled a tight little smile.

He would very much have like to explore that topic further, but had to make an appearance at a banquet that evening. She begged off, and found it suspiciously easy to gain his acquiescence. He was up to something. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned as he began to leave.

He swung round and raised his eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

She crossed the room and put her hand on his chest as he stood by the door: “The shine of politics has begun to wear thin for you. I can tell. You’re frustrated every time you meet with Odin, and have to deal with bureaucracy. You’re bored and irritated. Please don’t do something I will regret.”

“Something _you_ will regret?” And he cocked his head.

She pulled his face to hers and kissed him fiercely. “ _You_ never regret anything — that’s your problem. Don’t make me regret for you.”


	10. Of Subterfuge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We are going to talk about this later.” She insisted, though with a good deal less force.  
>  “Yes.” He kissed her shoulder. “Later.” He kissed her collarbone.  
>  “Don’t forget.” She breathed.  
>  “I won’t forget.” He kissed her breast over the silk of her shirt.  
>  “Liar.” She growled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nsfw

_“Faith, here’s an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator.” Macbeth, II.3_

 

“How was the banquet? You seemed particularly pleased with yourself while you were gone.”

“Mmmm,” Loki breathed in her scent as he crawled into bed. “It was entertaining,” he remarked noncommittally, though he smirked when he said it.

“That’s an equivocal answer,” she replied. “You were up to something.” Sannaet tried to turn around to face him, but he trapped her in his arms.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he whispered as he snuggled closer.

“Loki, what did you do?” She shot back, and tried again to turn around.

“Why are you always so suspicious?” He asked innocently.

“Because you’re always up to something.”

“I resent that implication,” he said as he nibbled on her ear.

“Stop trying to distract me.”

“Who said I was trying to distract you?” He kissed her neck, and turned her around to face him, trapping her beneath him.

“We are going to talk about this later.” She insisted, though with a good deal less force.

“Yes.” He kissed her shoulder. “Later.” He kissed her collarbone.

“Don’t forget.” She breathed.

“I won’t forget.” He kissed her breast over the silk of her shirt.

“Liar.” She growled, and then let out a little squeak as he bit down. He chuckled low in his chest before he pulled the hem of her nightshirt over her head and deftly tied her wrists together. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Is that a trick question?” This, as he secured the loose ends of the shirt to the headboard.

“But I can’t do anything like this,” she whined.

“Precisely,” he smirked. “All you have to do is lie there and enjoy yourself.” And he ran his hand slowly down her stretched out frame, just barely touching her skin as his eyes followed his movements.

She held her breath with the pleasure until she let out a long breathy sigh.

Loki lay by her side just looking, tracing light paths across her breasts and tummy, “Mmmmm, so beautiful — how did I ever get to be so lucky,” he sighed.

She giggled, “You must have been a tremendously gracious soul in a past life.”

He thought about that for half a second before answering, “No.” He kissed her neck. “No, I don’t think so.” He licked her lips as a stray hand cupped her breast.

“Then clearly you are just an incredibly lucky sod,” she whispered as her hips began to squirm.

“Clearly. How. Then. Shall I. Ever. Hope. To express. My. Gratitude.” And each word was punctuated by a soft, wet kiss down her neck, with a brief pause to suck and tease her breasts, before trailing down her stomach.

Her sighs by now had turned to a song of little whines, “You are making — hmmmm — a tremendous . . . * . . . beginning.”

He parted her legs and planted yet another series of wet kisses up her thighs before barely, just barely nuzzling her wetness, making her arch her back with need. “Oh, Loki, please.”

“Please what?” He teased.

She hummed with desperation, “Please don’t tease.” He held her hips and tasted that wetness as she gasped for breath, running his tongue up the length of her, listening to her heart, to the tiny hums of pleasure as he moved one way and then another, breathing on her sex before pressing his tongue against her heat and sucking gently as he slid first one, then another finger inside, then finding just that perfect spot that would make her fall apart, until she screamed as her orgasm crashed over her.

He slid back up her torso and kissed her deeply as she recovered, untied her wrists and wrapped her arms around him. “That was the best thank you I have ever received,” she sighed.

“Oh my love, I have barely started,” and he once again trailed his hands over her warm flesh.

*****

The next afternoon, Sannaet wandered over to Loki’s rooms, sat across the table from him, and crossed her arms: “So, Sif tells me that Fandral and that snake from court, Ulf, were hauled out of the banquet last night, and arrested for causing extensive property damage. I guess they got into a nasty altercation, though oddly enough, neither can quite remember how it started. Ulf, she tells me, came out of the fight particularly badly, and had to spend time in the hospital wing, though Fandral, as I would have expected, seemed to have emerged fairly unscathed. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it.”

“Did I not? I must have forgotten.” He was, unsurprisingly, smiling like a Cheshire cat.

“Hmm. How curious it should slip your mind. I imagine you rather enjoyed watching.”

“Oh, it was quite entertaining.”

“Loki, you can’t do that sort of thing.”

“What . . .watch bar fights? This is Asgard, love, they are difficult to avoid.”

“You know exactly what I mean, _love_ — the heir apparent cannot afford to engage in vigilante justice.”

“I did not fight.”

“No. But you provoked it.”

“You have no proof of that.”

“I don’t need proof.”

“Do you mean to imply that Ulf did not deserve what he got?” His smile had vanished and he sat forward in his chair. “Do you know what he does to his own daughters?”

“No. I don’t know.” She replied quietly, but she dropped her gaze.

“But you suspect.”

She scrunched her face in distaste: “I know how his daughters feel when he sits down next to them.”

“Then don’t tell me you are defending that disgusting lump of protoplasm,” he spoke as though he had just bitten into a rotten piece of flesh.

She looked up: “I am defending _you_. What if Odin finds out what you’ve been doing?” He raised his eyebrow. “Don’t think I don’t know about the other times, as well — Geir, Steen and Vidar; and this is the second time with Ulf, am I right? I will grant that none of them are shining examples of Asgardian virtue and honor, but setting them up to get the crap beat out of them is hardly an appropriate ruling strategy. Are you trying to provoke a confrontation with Odin?”

Loki sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the arm: “No, but he won’t do anything. He has to know what those people are, what they do, but he never does anything unless someone brings a formal complaint, and many times not even then. That’s unacceptable. It never would have happened when my mo-, when Frigga was alive.”

“That’s what rulers do. You have to follow the rule of law.”

“Ha! Quoth the Queen of Protocol herself.” She frowned as he echoed her own phrasing.

“I am not a prince. If you expect others to obey, you have to follow the same rules. Frigga figured out ways to deal with scum like those without resorting to random violence.”

“I resent that — it is very carefully planned. There is nothing random about it.”

“You know very well what I mean.”

“Well, I consider myself duly warned. Thank you for your advice.” He screwed up his face in way that indicated precisely what he would do with said advice, before changing the subject entirely. “The healers tell me your brother will be released from their care tomorrow.” And here Sannaet gave a little groan of dread. “Have you been to see him?” He asked, but he already knew the answer.

“No.”

“So you haven’t spoken yet.”

“No.”

“How long, exactly, has been since you you’ve spoken?”

“Two-hundred-and-fifty years, give or take a few decades.” Loki raised a questioning eyebrow.

“We get along much better when we are not actually in communication with one another.”

“Lovely,” and he rolled his eyes.


	11. Of Family Harmony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sannaet finally talks with her brother. It does not go well.

_“Mark his condition and the event; then tell me_

_If this might be a brother” — The Tempest, I.2_

 

“Hello, Aleth.”

“San.”

“How are you?”

Sannaet stood by the hospital bed. Aleth had been under the healers’ care for two weeks, and they had decided he could leave that afternoon. There were no empty rooms at the palace, so a bed had been placed in Sannaet’s parlor until something better could be arranged. Neither of them was thrilled at the prospect of sharing quarters, but it would have to do.

“You know how I am. Don’t ask stupid questions.” He gave her a sour, disdainful look.

She pursed her lips and bit back a nasty reply. She thought one, instead: _Don’t push my buttons, you squid; I’m too old for these games._

_Don’t be a moron and I won’t treat you like one._

_For someone who’s just been rescued from certain death, you don’t seem very grateful._

_Oh well, I must have been too overwhelmed by your warm and gracious welcome. I couldn’t properly express my gratitude because you’ve suffocated me with your attentions. It was so nice of you to visit me so often during my recovery._

_Yes, well I could hardly have done any less for the brother who has been so supportive and sympathetic to me in my own hours of distress._

_‘Distress!’ Don’t patronize me — you’ve led a cushy, coddled existence ever since mother died._

_Yes, well, you did your level best to make up for that, didn’t you? You bullied me at home and then followed me to Helsingor to keep up your good work. I’m surprised you didn’t try to get a posting in Jotunheim, too._

_You always were melodramatic. “Bullied” is hardly what I would have called it. No one else was going to tell Mama’s darling when she was doing sloppy work._ His mouth curled itself into a tiny smile while his gaze remained cool and patronizing.

“You fucking asshole!”

Everyone in the room started as she said it, except Loki, who looked askance with a raised eyebrow. Sannaet looked around at the shocked faces of the healers and realized the problem. They had, of course, only heard the first four lines of the conversation — the rest had been silent. The link between her and her brother had always been strong, as was usual between siblings who were both empathic. Theirs had developed to the point where they could “speak” to one another silently as long as they were within eyesight. Unfortunately, while it had fostered emotional intensity, it hadn’t lead to a blissful relationship. “Sarcastic” was the default setting for most of their conversations.

Loki looked between the two of them with a thinly veiled amusement. While he hadn’t “heard” their conversation, he had felt the rising fury in Sannaet’s heart, and could guess what had happened. He decided perhaps now was a bad time for an extended reunion. “Maybe you should talk later after you have moved out of the hospital,” he suggested. Sannaet glared at her brother and agreed, “I think maybe that would be better, yes.”

Aleth nodded in agreement to Loki’s suggestion, then looked at his sister. S _poiled brat_.

*****

“Would you now care to fill me in on the various subtleties of that relationship?” Loki asked as they walked back to her rooms. He barely covered his smirk, but luckily for him, Sannaet was too angry to notice.

“You would think that after 250 years, he would at least pretend to be happy to see me. You have to find somewhere else for him to stay. I will kill him as he sleeps if I am forced to interact with him on a 24-hour basis.” She walked fast, fast enough that even Loki’s long strides barely kept him even with her. He tried to slow her momentum.

“Sannaet.”

She barely acknowledged his voice. “I cannot live with him. If you had heard what he said. You could feel it, though, couldn’t you? It’s no wonder no one at Helsingor wanted to work with him. He was only ever good at cataloging. It’s completely baffling to me that an empath could be so bad at working with others. Why they agreed to post him out for field research at all is beyond my comprehension.” Loki’s smile faded into annoyance.

“Sannaet.”

“He should never have been allowed out of that tiny little dark room he worked in. How dare he suggest that I had it easy.” And here she slammed the door to her rooms shut and she began pacing. “Why doesn’t he just grow up? Why is he always so nasty? What does it take for him to give me even the tiniest bit of respect? I work really hard.” The pitch of her voice began to rise as she fought back tears of frustration.

“Sannaet, stop.” Loki grabbed her by the arms and turned her to face him. She stopped. “Take a breath.” She glared at him for a few seconds before she took a sarcastic huff. He raised an eyebrow. “Another. — Slightly less ironic this time, please.” She continued glaring, but took a regular breath this time. “Another, please.” She complied, glaring slightly less. “Thank you,” he said curtly, and only then did he let her go.

She flopped down into a cushy chair, and he went to get something to drink, _a good strong glass of wine might be a good idea_ , he thought.

“It happens so fast, doesn’t it? Why do I let him get to me like that after so many years?”

“Brothers are like that,” he shrugged as he returned with a pair of glasses.

“Does he have to stay here?”

“There is no other place,” he insisted, as he handed her a drink.

“He will go through all of my papers.” She jumped up with the sudden realization, shoved her cup into Loki’s hands, and began gathering things together. “Can you keep some of this over in your rooms? I’ll never hear the end of it once he starts going through them. Nothing is ever the way he thinks it ought to be, and then he’ll deface the ones he thinks are sub-standard. I’ll have to do them all over again.” Loki quickly set the glass down, and stood still — both amused and bewildered— as she began piling things into his arms: stacks of drawings, short bits of narrative, a data recorder she had filled with notes. She rushed into the bedroom and gathered up everything she had brought back from her father’s house — the miniatures, the jewelry box, the artistic tools; “can you take these and hide them, as well? He’ll want to take them.” She set them on top of the pile in his arms and cast about the room in case she had forgotten anything.

His silence finally made her pause as she stood in front of him. “You understand, don’t you?” She looked up at him earnestly as she explained. “He’s the oldest, and he always had to be in charge, always had to be the best. My sister was the youngest, and she always got what she wanted, because she always had to be protected. I am the middle child. It was always my job just to suck it up and keep going. I always had to give way — to him because he was bigger, or to my sister, because she was the baby. If I wanted something for my own, I had to work for it, and then I had to keep it out of sight.”

He smiled sympathetically: “I believe I understand more about you now, than I have in the entire time I have known you. I will find a safe place for everything,” he reassured her, and took the pile she had given him next door, while she scoured the rooms for anything else that she thought should be squirreled away.

*****

When Aleth arrived that afternoon, the absence of work materials was the first thing he noticed: “I see you’ve been taking a bit of an extended vacation, San, or do you have the luxury of a dedicated office in which to work?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Can you just let it rest for five minutes, Aleth? Do we have to get into this now?”

“Oh, I don’t know, you always look at me as though you’re expecting a fight, I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

“I promise, I will not be disappointed.”

“Ok then, I will try to ‘let it rest for five minutes,’ and he sat down in the biggest chair he could find, arms spread wide across its back, ankle resting on his knee.

Sannaet screwed up her mouth in frustration, and then introduced her brother to Loki — a formality overlooked earlier, since she had ducked out of the hospital so quickly that afternoon.

As she and Loki took seats across from him, Aleth turned to his sister accusingly, and thought at her, _What, in the name of Truth, is he doing here?_

Sannaet worked to keep her emotions out of her face and heart as she replied: _Loki has taken over security for me. I’ve had a bit of trouble._

He didn’t respond at first, instead just looked at her with a patronizing silence, searching her heart. As the seconds ticked by, she sat up straighter in her chair, flushed, and began glowering at him, while Loki studied them both, gleaning what he could from their body language and from the growing resentment he could feel in her heart. Finally Aleth broke out with a declaration: “You’re in love with him!” It was not an expression of joyful discovery. “Of all of the hearts in the infinite universe! How stupid are you? At your age, you ought to be beyond naive infatuation with charming snakes like him.”

 _Shut up!_ And her hands balled up into tight fists with her anger, while Loki barely disguised his amusement.

“No, I will not shut up. You’re the so-called expert in the Jotunheim wars. You should know better than anyone **what** he is.” Aleth turned to Loki whose smile still hovered about the edges of his mouth, and probed his heart for a long moment before raising his eyebrows in disbelief.

Then he returned his gaze to Sannaet and re-doubled his attack: “You’re linked. I’m not even going to ask how you managed that without a spirit worker. There is no way you should have been able to — you’re damn lucky you didn’t get lost in there.”

_Aleth!_

“But, never mind the risk — by all that’s Truthful, **why** would you do that? You do realize that it’s permanent? You can’t unlink yourself — you’ll have to listen to his — _heart,_ I suppose one still has to call it that — for the next two or three thousand years, or until you manage to get yourself killed, which I’m frankly surprised hasn’t happened yet.”

_Aleth, stop it!_

“Ok, maybe he loves you _now_ , but you have to know that he’ll see you as disposable — that’s what he is. Don’t think you’re going to rescue him and turn him into Mr. Wonderful. His history speaks for itself. He is a liar and a user.”

“You are not my father, Aleth!”

“No, but you certainly seem to need parenting. You have a history of being attracted to losers, but you’ve outdone yourself this time. He is the diametric opposite of everything we stand for. The elders will cast you out. No one will speak to you.”

Loki had at first been entertained by the exchange, but the longer Aleth continued his diatribe, the less tolerant he became. Loki’s eyes began soon began to glint with anger rather rather than merriment, even though the curl at the edge of his mouth remained. As Aleth finally paused for breath, Loki leaned forward in his chair threateningly, and interrupted, “Once you are finished talking about me in the third person, there are a few questions I would like to clear up about your injuries” — somehow implying that he would be more than willing to add to those injuries should Aleth choose to continue. Loki then fired off a string of questions with quiet menace: “How did they know what you are? How did they know where you were? What did you tell them? Why did you return to the Holbec archive? And how do we know you’re not still under their control?”

Aleth looked at him silently for a long time before he responded, and Sannaet could tell that he was trying to measure how seriously he should take Loki’s implied threat. “They did not choose to tell me how they knew of me or my location,” he began, not quite snidely, but not precisely with grace, either. “I did not _volunteer_ any information; they took my equipment and my skin,” he continued with a bit less grace still. “And you know that I am not ‘under their control’ for two painfully obvious reasons — one sits in that chair” and he pointed to his sister. “As stupid as she apparently is, she would still know immediately if I were not myself. The other rests in my DNA, and if you knew half as much as you pretend to, you would understand exactly what that means,” and this final remark dripped with a patronizing sneer that appeared to be Aleth’s default expression.

Sannaet summarized what her brother felt beneath himself to explain: “The set of genes that make empathy possible are associated with others that make it extremely difficult to manipulate our race through mind control techniques or telepathy. We cannot be possessed in the way that the Midgarders were manipulated during the fight for the tesseract. That’s why they could not force us to re-write our Archives in the first place, and why our continued existence became such a personal affront to them. Our race seems genetically predisposed to not follow orders,” she concluded with a weak smile to punctuate her weak attempt at self-deprecating humor.

Loki’s eyes briefly flicked over to hers as she spoke, and he filed that chunk of information away for future reference. His demeanor, however, remained dark as his gaze returned to Aleth. _There is something he is not telling us_ , he brooded to himself.

Sannaet also knew her brother’s tale was deliberately vague, but she dismissed his obfuscations as another example of his arrogance. She expected him to treat her like a child, and was used to smoothing over his abrasiveness toward others.

His visceral reaction against Loki, however, was deeply troubling, and hinted at difficulties she had deliberately blocked out. She twisted the hem of her tunic into knots.

_Would they really cast me out? Would they really not let me go home?_

 

 


	12. Of Unexpected Arrivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Refugees begin to impose on Asgard's hospitality, but charity only extends so far.

_“Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make_   
_Will but remember me what a deal of world_   
_I wander from the jewels that I love.” Richard II, I.3_

 

Whatever uncomfortable silence that filled the remaining space in the room was soon forced out by a knock. It was Fandral.

“Loki, another one has shown up,” and he nodded to Sannaet and her brother, meaning ‘another one of them.’

Loki raised his eyebrow, “what do you mean, ‘shown up’.”

“Materialized in the armory.”

Sannaet’s mouth dropped open as Loki looked at her for an explanation. Aleph, however, did not seem quite so surprised.

“I will follow you,” Loki said to Fandral, but when Sannaet stood to go along, he shook his head. “We don’t know what, if anything, will come after. You should stay here.” She frowned at his back as he turned to go, but acquiesced. Instead she turned to her brother.

_You look at through you were expecting this._

_Of course I was. How much time do you think it really took the Enemy to decipher the code? It couldn’t have been that long. Now they have begun hunting, and people will be running for cover. This is the only logical place they would go._

_Why here?_

_Well, they can’t go home, too risky. But word spread fairly quickly that there was one of the Gwyrioneth on Asgard — one who had done a favor for the king. No one mentioned knowing it was you, in particular — though I figured it must have been — but_ someone _was here. You might as well have put up flashing billboards._

_How would they find out? No one was supposed to maintain contact with anyone else._

He laughed at that. _Not everyone worshipped Laera’s boots as fervently as you did. Many of us kept open lines of communication._

She bristled at that last comment, but gritted her teeth and glossed it over for the moment. _So there will be more._

 _Many, many more_ , and his face was grim.

*****

And there were. By noon the next day, 57 had shown up — all in the same place Sannaet had materialized the year before. Most were single, but there were at least two couples, and one woman with a child. All were seeking asylum after having been discovered by the Enemy. By supper time, the number had grown to 72.

Odin was furious, and insisted the three of them see him at once, so there they stood — Sannaet, her brother, and Loki — as Odin sat above them in his throne. “How many are we to expect?” He railed. “Hundreds? Thousands? A million? How many of you were out there? How are you all to be housed? How are you to be fed? We cannot possibly take all of you in.” “What will you do, then? Send us all back to be slaughtered?” Aleth shouted back, and stepped up on the lower stair of the dais. “Send all of us to our home planet, where we are equally at risk? It is a death sentence. We have no way to defend ourselves from this malice.”

Odin rose menacingly from his seat, and Sannaet quickly interposed herself between him and her brother, pushing him back off the stairs. “Can you house us temporarily while we try to plan what do to? Surely this is not something that should be decided rashly.”

“Where do you propose we put you in the meantime?” Odin glowered back. “I don’t believe you will fit more than a dozen in your rooms, and more seem to show up every hour.”

Rage boiled out of all three hearts surrounding her. How could such intense emotions be re-directed usefully? It seemed impossible.

Much to her frustration, Loki then seized the opportunity to needle his adopted father: “Not only are they showing up, but there are potentially hundreds more in need of active rescue.” Apparently Loki had decided that self-righteousness offered a way to rebel while simultaneously giving him the moral high ground.

Very convenient for him.

Not so much for Sannaet.

“We have a moral obligation,” he continued, “to bring in as many of their people as we can find in order to save their race from extinction.”

Odin was not amused. “Do I need to remind you once more that we are not, in fact, Gods, despite what your inflated ego may delude you into thinking. I might also ask _you_ why all of these beings happen to be materializing in the same weapons depot in which those Jutuns so conveniently appeared several years ago.” Sannaet scowled as the conversation spiraled out of control. Then her brother turned toward Loki as he decided to add his two cents.

“And don’t think that any of them would accept your help.” Aleth practically spat the words at Loki. “No one will trust you.”

Loki rounded on him with a hot malice that even to Sannaet felt like a physical blow, his jawline taught and every muscle on edge.

“Why would they?” Aleth continued, “after the Enemy so completely usurped your heart? What prevents that from happening again? You might have convinced these people of your reformation with your charm and clever speeches, but no _true_ Gwyrioneth will ever trust you entirely. You are the physical embodiment of Untruth. We are defenders of Truth.”

 _SHUT UP, ALETH!_ Sannaet screamed in his head. He winced, but lost no momentum; instead he turned his diatribe to her.

“Don’t think they’ll accept your help, either. Not now that you’ve linked your heart with his. I was not exaggerating before. Lies and liars are like pitch — they defile everyone who comes too near. Nothing you do will be above suspicion. Search your own heart. You know who will turn away when you approach.”

As the color drained out of Sannaet’s face, Loki closed the distance between himself and her brother with predatory swiftness, lowering over the shorter man while every sinew drew taught for a blow. He stood absolutely still as the waves of anger rolled off his heart, and his jaw showed the effort it took to restrain himself.

Finally he broke the tableau. He glanced briefly at Sannaet as if to say “I will finish this later,” and then stalked out of the room.

Sannaet’s face still reflected the anger and fear her brother had stirred up, and she shook with their intensity. Suddenly the emotions let loose — “I am fully grown, Aleth, and I will not be bullied any longer.” She drew her arm back and cracked him full across the face with her fist, knocking him down on one knee before striding out the door after Loki.

Aleth slowly pulled himself back on his feet and glanced up at Odin, now sitting on his throne, one eyebrow cocked in amusement: “She’s been training,” he said to the bewildered brother.

“Apparently,” he mumbled, looking very much cowed.

Odin’s mood suddenly shifted to one more businesslike, and he slowly descended from his throne: “I will grant your people temporary housing in the courtroom. We can lay out cots and hang curtains to lend them a small sense of privacy, but a permanent solution must be found quickly. Asgard cannot become a surrogate home to an entire race of people, no matter how worthy they may be in the defense of Truth.” Aleth nodded soberly.

“In the meantime, I suggest you find a slightly more diplomatic method of dealing with your sister, as well as with Loki. While I suspect your assessment of their reception may, unfortunately, be accurate, Loki can not only be a devastating enemy, but an equally formidable ally. I would tread more carefully.”

By this point Odin stood on the bottom step, coming face to face with the younger man. “He restrains himself now only because of your sister’s grace, as do I. She has gained herself a host of admirers since her arrival, and you do yourself no favors by your disrespect.” Aleth flushed at the implied threat. “I also suspect that there is more to your story than you have revealed, Empath, something you cover over with your bluster. If you value the truth as much as you claim, it would be best if you were to become more forthright.”

Aleth watched in silence as Odin turned and left him alone in the vast, empty throne room. The wide hall returned the echoes of his footsteps while Aleth’s heart boiled with chagrin, anger, worry, and guilt.

*****

Once he returned to Sanaet’s rooms, Aleth collapsed in a chair and closed his eyes. A nasty purple bruise had begun to form on his cheek from Sannaet’s fist, but he didn’t look for help. He knew he was in for an interrogation, and for once, felt as though he deserved it.

“Aleth, what the hell was that all about?” Sannaet emerged from the door to the garden and stood in the remains of the sunlight with her arms crossed.

He screwed his face up in an attempt to gain control of himself, and spoke soberly for the first time since he had seen her, “San, this is partly my fault.”

She was caught slightly off guard by his conciliatory mood, though she was by no means mollified by the limited nature of the admission: “Well, that’s a grandiose concession. What exactly are you taking responsibility for?” She expected some sort of apology for his personal attacks. But that’s not what he was talking about. Not at all.

“The refugees, here, now.”

“Say that again? That’s not possible.” She came farther into the room and took a seat at the worktable.

“It is possible. ‘Safety in anonymity’ — ” he laughed bitterly. “You know how much I cared for Laera’s tired maxims. When I de-coded my contact list, I contacted them. I went to visit a few, in fact, and I kept all of the information ready on my data recorder. I’m not sure what tipped the Enemy off to me first, though it could be any number of stupid things I had done. Anyway, they came, and they found the data recorder, and they asked questions, and when they couldn’t get answers in their usual way, they did . . . other things.”

She clenched her jaw and swallowed hard as she felt the remembered fear wash over his heart and threaten to drown him. She leaned closer so she would catch every word. “And . . .?” She prodded quietly.

“When I went home, I didn’t go home because I thought I would get help. I knew very well where you were, and I could have gone to look for you here. I went to Holbec because I was positive it was the _last_ place I would get help. You weren’t supposed to be there. No one was supposed to be there. I went home to die.” He drew his hand across his face as he remembered. “San, when they took . . . what they took . . . they already knew what they had, because I told them — they broke me easily. — I have never felt pain like that.”

That’s what he had hoped to hide with his arrogance and bluster. Everyone was now at risk. “The refugees are leaving because the Enemy is hunting down the names on my contact list. They will hunt down others because they can now read everyone’s data.”

“That doesn’t explain why the refugees are all coming here.”

“Well, that would be your fault, I’m afraid — plenty of guilt to spread around. They are coming here because of what you did for Odin — and Him.” And here Aleth nodded next door rather than say Loki’s name, the contempt plain in his heart. “They figure that the Asgardians will feel obliged to help us because one of us risked her safety to help them — of course, most of them don’t know it was you, specifically, and they certainly won’t know _why_ you did it.” And here she scowled again, but he ignored that and continued. “They are also coming here because we know there’s an easy door into this world. Your companion’s prank in the armory — letting those Jotun fighters in to mess with his brother’s coronation — that prank left a weak spot that makes it easier to funnel a portal into Asgard. Don’t ask me how we know that; someone much cleverer than me discovered it.”

“What are we going to do? We can’t all stay here, and we can’t possibly go home.”

“That’s just it, though, isn’t it?” And here Aleth’s voice turned sour. “It isn’t “we” any more. I was wrong to break anonymity, but I wasn’t wrong about Him, or you. You know I’m right — there is nothing you can do for them, and they probably will never let you go home — not permanently. Whatever gets done will have to be done without you. At least, without your seeming to do anything. You made a choice. Now you have to live with it. ‘Pain builds character.’”

She swallowed hard against the weight forming in her chest, and blinked to contain the tear that threatened to break loose.

“You deliberately linked your heart to his. Most hearts frown on anyone linking with a Stranger, and he’s not _just_ a Stranger. He is The Stranger, The Master of All Liars. He is everything we are not. No one will trust him, regardless of how many grand recommendations he might have. And by extension, no one will trust you. You will have to prepare yourself for that. If you go to see those already gathered here, most will refuse to speak to you. None will forgive you.”

She sank back into her chair as she absorbed his words. She had, ironically, become No One once more, even as she had become notorious.


	13. Of Storytellers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sannaet could catch no one’s eye, nor exchange any look — friendly or otherwise. Even though she swore that she recognized at least two former friends, they all turned away.   
> They simply pretended she was invisible. Nothing. No one. Nada.

_“Now I find report a very liar.” Taming of the Shrew, II.1_

 

Whether they would accept her help or not, something would have to be done soon. The number of refugees seemed to increase exponentially every day, until thousands crowded the throne room and spilled into the halls. So many empaths crammed into a small space soon began to cause problems. Stress levels ran high, and fed back into the crowd to magnify tensions. Soon, the emotional waves began to affect the Asgardians who had taken them in. Fights broke out even more frequently than usual. Unexplained bouts of weepiness swept through the kitchens when utensils were misplaced. Some found they had no will to rise out of bed. Others found they could no longer sleep.

As they tried to decide what to do, Loki urged Aleth to begin decoding as much of the data ink as possible, asking specifically that he decode as many hanging man icons as possible. Sannaet pulled all of the data readers out of the armory she had managed to salvage, and helped Aleth carry them down to the courtroom. She directed workmen from the palace staff to set up work stations in discrete spots around the room, while Aleth began to organize the refugees into teams.

No one greeted her.

As she walked from one table to the next, paths silently opened up around her as hearts first became cold, and then moved away. She could catch no one’s eye, nor exchange any look — friendly or otherwise. Even though she swore that she recognized at least two former friends, they all turned away.

They simply pretended she was invisible. Nothing. No one. Nada.

She escaped as soon as she could, leaving her brother to finish without her, and spent the next few hours locked in the bathroom, soaking in a tub of water as hot as she could possibly stand, occasionally running the water so no one would hear her cursing.

*****

At the end of the first day, Loki waited for Aleth to return to the room for the night. He practically ambushed him as he entered, meeting him at the door and following him as he walked to the table: “What did you find?”

“Why do you care so much about that stupid emblem?” Aleth complained. He was exhausted after working nearly straight through since early morning.

Loki took a seat opposite him, “It has to be important. Why else would everyone have one?”

“You’re hiding something,” Aleth parried. “You know you’ll just confirm everything everyone fears about you. If you know something, you need to tell us.”

Just at that moment, Sannaet walked into the room, skin still glowing from the heat of the bathwater, eyes red. “What are you talking about?” her voice hoarse and ragged.

“He knows something, San.”

“Loki?”

He scowled and leaned back into his chair, but didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes followed Sannaet as she crossed the room and sat down next to him. He covered her hand with his, stroking her knuckles with his thumb.

They sat in silence like that for a least 5 minutes, Sannaet glancing from Loki then to her brother before she fixed her gaze on the hand that rested in Loki’s. Finally Loki spoke — “I just need more information. I have no grand, nefarious plot; you will simply just have to trust me. What I know just doesn’t make any sense yet.”

“And we can’t help you figure it out?” She asked, wearily.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Aleth answered for him: “Because he wants to swoop in at the last minute and play savior, obviously. Why else? He may have nothing to gain from our destruction, but a good deal to gain if he can parley his relationship with us into rehabilitating his reputation. Since he cannot help directly, he’s decided to play puppet master from behind the scenes.”

Loki’s face took on a dangerous look once more. As he leaned forward, he dropped Sannaet’s hand and rested his arms on the table— “Do you want my help or not, little man?”

Aleth paused in the face of the threat in Loki’s eyes, remembering Odin’s warning. He blinked. “Yes,” he admitted.

“Then I need information.”

The line of Aleath’s mouth tightened. He blinked. “There is precious little to give you. We traced the emblems from dozens of researchers and only came up with a few fragments — five or six sentences at most.”

“I will take them, and wait until you find more.”

“Fair enough.”

*****

The decoding process continued for days, then over a week as more refugees arrived. Aleth spent most of his days with the arrivals, avoiding Loki as much as possible.

The refugees continued to wall Sannaet out. She tried once more to help Aleth, but was greeted again by that more-than-silence. Her presence was like a little island of nothing, an obstacle, perhaps, to be walked around, yet not observed — just avoided. She did not try to help again. Instead she began to climb the stairs to the balcony of the throne room and watch silently from above.

Every day.

Only once — on the third day — did her brother finally look up at her: _Go home, San._ He thought up at her. _This isn’t helping — us or you._

_I don’t have a home, Aleth. Where am I supposed to go?_

He had no answer for her.

*****

That night Sannaet could not sleep. She lay propped up on her side watching Loki, listening to his breath, memorizing every curve of his face, neck, and shoulders. Immediately after the spirit walk, it had been difficult to sleep together. Their dreams pushed at one another — the ebb and flow of emotions poking, molding, shaping each other’s subconscious selves. Many nights they were startled awake by the adrenaline-fueled terror of each other’s nightmares, or awoke tangled together by the heat of each other’s dreams. It took many weeks before they managed a full night’s sleep together. But slowly the nightmares for both began to recede, re-emerging with less frequency and ferocity. And though those terrors never disappeared entirely, they could at least get some sleep. The constant dual melody of their hearts now defined their existence.

Tonight, however, it brought Sannaet no comfort. She quietly listened to the misty ebb and flow of his dreamscape while her own heart hunkered down in her chest, bloated with the detritus of the week’s events — the rejection, her sense of complete isolation from all that was familiar, everything that defined home. Here in the dark, her mind would not turn itself off: _What if something happens to him? I have lost — given away — all that I had. And I did it virtually on impulse, by accident. I never suspected we could forge that link with no spirit worker or ceremony. It shouldn’t have happened. And now I have lost everything._

Loki drew a deep breath, shifted position slightly, and lay still once more.

_Aleth was right about me, about us — we are now Strangers. What if he’s right about Loki, too? What if he gets bored?_

She closed her eyes and grit her teeth, fighting for control. _I am no warrior princess. I am a gatherer of trivia. A collector of dusty facts that I catalog, index, and then shelve to be forgotten._ She suppressed a mirthless laugh. _No. Now I am not even that. I am no one. Will that make me disposable? Forgettable?_

Her throat constricted with the effort it took to hold back the hysteria that suddenly threatened to break out of her chest, a panic intensified because she so hated losing control. She swallowed hard and scrunched up her face, easing herself out of the bed so she wouldn’t wake him. Gathering up a throw from the foot of the bed, she curled up in a chair across the room. Still afraid her turmoil would wake him, she decided to hide — feeling the chair beneath her, the texture of its fabric, the give of its cushions beneath her. She imagined herself sinking into it, becoming part of it. Being nothing. Anyone passing by would notice only the chair covered by a rumpled blanket.

After many minutes passed, Sannaet felt Loki’s conscious mind bubble up to the surface, and heard the bedding shift as his weight moved. A moment of silence passed before his voice drifted across the room, quiet with concern: “Who are you hiding from?”

She blinked.

“It doesn’t work with me anymore, you know. You might be able to hide from Sif, but I can still see you — I can feel you.”

Sannaet slowly pulled back into herself and turned to face him as he watched from the bed.

“Who are you hiding from,” he asked once more, his face hidden in the darkness.

“Everyone” came her tight, whispered reply.

After a short pause, the sheets rustled as he slid out of bed and padded across the floor. His silhouette loomed over her over her before settling on its knees in front of the chair.

His heart was seething — she felt a smoldering anger, and she stiffened as he reached toward her face: “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her throat still constricted as she fought for control. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

He stopped, surprised, then leaned close, trying to see her face in the darkness, “What are you afraid of?”

She opened her mouth, but could not say the words. No sound would come out unless it came with big, barking sobs which she still fought hard to suppress. She clapped both hands over her mouth in one last effort to hold them in as great convulsions suddenly wracked her body.

“Oh love,” he sighed. Loki pulled her off the chair and into his lap, wrapping his arms around her so tightly it seemed as though he would pull her right inside himself. “Whatever it is you fear, you do not have to fear that.” He rocked back and forth as he crooned the words. “It is not you I’m angry at. Definitely not you.”

*****

After Aleth spent several more days gathering data, Sannaet perched on the arm of Loki’s chair as he puzzled over the fragments Aleth had discovered. Well over 100 emblems had been scanned, and it seemed unlikely that there were any more fragments of the story undiscovered. There was only the barest outline of a narrative — only pieces, certainly no conclusion.

          “Their world dazzled with light reflected from spires of airy lightness and gemlike sparkle.”

          “They would learn from the mistakes of others”

          “They lived for the sake of beauty, and studied the natural life of their world so as to both imitate it and build in harmony with it.”

          “So they devised a way to record the stories”

          “they founded their civilization on the preservation of all that is true”

          “Why, she asked, can we not preserve the stories”

         “the listeners would be healed of their hatreds, wounds would cease to ache, and trauma would be transformed into new life”

         “one heart was troubled by these losses”

         “We should stop telling stories that lie, and instead tell only Truth.”

          “they stored it in their great libraries to be preserved for all time”

          “Wisdom from sacrifice. Character from pain.”

“That’s it?” Loki frowned in disbelief. “He’s gathered data from dozens of your people and these are the only fragments he’s found?”

“That’s it. They just get repeated, and after the first 20 or 30 hearts, he found nothing new — just the same phrases over and over.”

“That completely changes things.”

“Changes what? Loki, what are you really trying to find out? Aleth has never been the most perceptive feeler, but what he said the other day really bothered you. How close to the truth did he get?”

Loki sat back in his chair. He pulled Sannaet into his lap and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair: “I cannot stand what they’re doing to you. The only reason they have gotten help from Odin — from anyone in Asgard — is for your sake. Yet they will not even acknowledge you exist. It infuriates me. So, I suppose, yes, in a way, your brother is right. I want to “swoop in” and save them. But only because it would force them to be grateful to you. I want to rescue you, and it seems the only way to do that is to rescue them. Believe me, if it were only for their sake, I would leave them on a barren mountain to starve.”

She turned around and kissed him fiercely, then closed her eyes and held his cheek next to her own. “We are both lucky, I think,” she said smiling, and they sat like that for many minutes, just listening to each other breathe.

Finally Sannaet returned to their puzzle: “Why does this change everything?”

He let out a heavy sigh of resignation, but somehow still with his trademark smirk. “Because it means that everything about your holier-than-thou-we-honor-only-the-truth civilization is built on a lie.”

He grabbed her wrists quickly before she could smack him in the head. Her face flushed with anger as she tried to muster a suitably devastating reply, but he put a hand over her mouth. “Wait. I’ll show you.”

Loki pulled himself out of the chair, and walked around the room sealing it off — passing his hands over the walls, windows and doors to mask them from prying ears and eyes, while Sannaet sat in his vacated chair and seethed. Only after he finished did he go into a back cupboard to search for something. When he returned he held an old wooden box — perfectly unassuming, but exceedingly well made. It looked as though it had been carved out of a single block of wood — there were no seams, no joiner’s marks. The lid not only fit snugly, but its grain matched perfectly the gain of the box it sealed. It had been polished to a glossy shine and colored in a way that brought out the intricate design of the wood’s own artistry. He placed it carefully on the table. “Have you ever seen this before?”

“No.” She replied with clipped tones. “What is it?”

“Never?” He seemed surprised.

“No. Loki, listen to my heart,” her scowl deepened. “I have never seen it. Where did you find it?”

“I found it in a back room at the very bottom of your archive.”

“In Helsingor?”

“No. In Holbec.”

“Holbec? That makes no sense.”

“Apparently Holbec’s archive is the older of the two buildings. Did you know that?”

“I guess so, yes.” She furrowed her brow.

“Well, I did a bit of poking around while you were off admiring shiny machines. It involved opening a few doors that I don’t think anyone bothered to open in millennia.”

“You mean you picked a bunch of locks.”

He rolled his eyes, “If you want to put it crudely, yes. But I don’t believe I ever put my locksmith skills to better use.”

“Ok, so you found this behind one of those locked doors.” She was not impressed.

“Not just a locked door. Through several locked doors and into the true basement — where the building sucks its power out of the planet’s core. In the back of that vast technological wonder, I found a little office, and in the back of that little office, behind a row of shelves, I found a safe. That’s where I found this. Someone went through an awful lot of trouble to hide it.”

“I thought you said you didn’t like being underground,” she jabbed.

“I don’t. But I was trying to solve a puzzle.”

She cocked her head.

“Well,” he smirked, “you never give me enough answers, so I had to find other ways to figure you out, figure out your race.” She rolled her eyes.

“Ok . . . So what’s in it?”

Loki pulled the lid off. Inside there was a book. “That’s it? A book? How is that worth all that trouble?”

“Take a closer look,” he urged. “But be very careful — it’s ancient.”

“Did I leave a pair of gloves in here?”

He smiled knowingly and handed her a pair of thin white gloves, which she pulled on before carefully lifting the little book out of the box.

First surprise? On the cover of the book was a large, gilt image of the hanging man.

Second surprise? That opposite the hanging man was a woman offering to cut the cords that held him to the tree.

Third surprise? That the book was a real book — hand written in real ink, on real parchment, stitched together with real thread.

Final surprise? The book contained only a few pages, on which were written a story, a story that contained the fragments they had discovered that afternoon, yet told a tale very different than the one any Gwyrioneth would have expected, and very different than the one implied by the few fragments preserved by the researchers.


	14. Of Fairy Tales and Origins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This stand alone chapter is the story told by the little book that Loki found in the basement safe.

_“A sad tale’s best for winter.” The Winter’s Tale, I.4_

 

 **O** nce upon a time there was a race of people who could build fantastical castles through the power of thought alone — these stories linked the hearts of their creators, harnessed the power locked within matter itself, and metamorphosed the old into new, re-shaping rock, and even living matter, into the stuff of cities. Their world dazzled with light reflected from spires of airy lightness and gemlike sparkle. Entire buildings of colored glass became transparent at their owners’ merest desire, then darkened again with a wink. Staircases wound around and moved of their own volition, powered by the planet’s very core. As long as the planet lived, so would their creations, built through their collective storytelling and repaired in the same way.

They lived for the sake of beauty, and studied the natural life of their world so as to both imitate it and build in harmony with it. Their dwellings themselves were both nature and art — organic and crafted.

Their pursuit of the sister arts was equally passionate. Their halls filed with music. Their clothing beautiful. Sculptures graced courtyard and garden alike. Walls glowed with the colors of their paintings and frescoes.

What they were most proud of, however, were their stories. During the evenings, their hearts would most often be found gathered both in intimate spaces and in large halls so they could listen to their master story tellers. As they spun their tales, the listeners would link hands and close their eyes, and the very air would glow and crackle with their shared connections. Tales were spun of true love, and of terrifying battles. Stories of gods and monsters. Narratives of harrowing quests, and visits to the great realm of the dead.

And as the tales were spun, the listeners would be healed of their hatreds, wounds would cease to ache, and trauma would be transformed into new life.

Yet one heart was troubled by the stories. Why, she asked, can we not preserve the stories we like best, and listen to them again and again. And this seemed reasonable enough at first. So they devised a way to record the stories, and some hearts took these recordings into their homes, and they decided that it was easier just to stay home and not go to the gatherings. They could choose what story to hear. And they could stay inside their beautiful houses. And they did not need to share their light with others.

The gatherings grew smaller. And their light dimmed because there were not so many hearts glowing all together. Until no one seemed to see much point in going out at all. And the storytellers just recorded their stories. And the hearts just listened to them by themselves. In their own houses. The lights became solitary. Hatreds were not forgotten, but nursed. Wounds did not heal, but instead festered. Trauma was not transformed to new life, but led to decay.

And one heart was troubled by these losses, and sought an explanation. He found it, he said, within the stories themselves. It is because they are lies, he declared. We should stop telling stories that lie, and instead tell only Truth. Our stories should record only history, not fiction. And many believed him. So they left the tellers of lies and built their own cities — buildings that sparkled in the sun and glowed in the moonlight. And they adorned those dwellings with graceful sculpture and radiant works of art.

But they told no tales.

Instead they recorded history.

First their own.

And then that of others.

And they founded their civilization on the preservation of all that is true — because there is in truth a beauty ready penned. And they would copy out only that. And when they heard that their cousins, the liars, were dying, they chose not to intervene, instead, they wrote out their history, and they stored it in their great libraries to be preserved for all time. They were the preservers of Truth. They would not save a lie. Instead, they would learn from the mistakes of others, rather than risk intervention.

Wisdom from sacrifice, though it was the sacrifice of others.

Character from pain, though the pain was not their own.

And so they forgot the birth of their race, even as they recorded the lives of others.

They forgot that only by joining their hearts, can they be healed of their hatreds. They forgot that only by telling stories, could they cease the aching of their wounds and transform trauma into new life. They forgot that truth is found in many forms, even at the heart of a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toward the end of the tale, there is an allusion to a poem by George Hebert, titled "Jordan (I)":
> 
> Who says that fictions only and false hair  
> Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?  
> Is all good structure in a winding stair?  
> May no lines pass, except they do their duty  
>  Not to a true, but painted chair?
> 
> Is it no verse, except enchanted groves  
> And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?  
> Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?  
> Must all be veil'd, while he that reads, divines,  
>  Catching the sense at two removes?
> 
> Shepherds are honest people; let them sing;  
> Riddle who list, for me, and pull for prime;  
> I envy no man's nightingale or spring;  
> Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme,  
>  Who plainly say, my God, my King.


	15. Of Enterprises Pithy and Momentous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a little meeting with his adoptive father.

_“While you here do snoring lie,_   
_Open-eyed conspiracy_   
_His time doth take.” The Tempest, II.1_

 

“That’s a bit different than I would have expected,” Sannaet admitted as she carefully placed the book back in its casket.

Loki’s enthusiasm spilled out — he felt as though he had finally pieced together the puzzle: “You see? That’s what I meant. If this is your origin story, then your whole culture is founded on a lie. Your great claim to be servants of a greater truth — that’s all rationalization spun out of airy nothingness. Your race are not meant to be the preservers of Truth. You are storytellers. Spinners of fiction. Liars all.”

“You’re a bit more gleeful than I am comfortable with,” she commented gloomily. Sannaet sunk back into the chair as she tried to process this new tidbit of information. “Did you discover anything else?”

“I did. In the back of those compact storage units, I discovered the history of a race called the Kevarwyth — storytellers, ‘ones who know.’ These two puzzle pieces seem to fit well together, don’t you think?”

*****

Meanwhile the Gwyrioneth tried to make themselves less of a burden. After the first week, some of the former archival faculty arrived. As soon as they assessed the situation, they formed a loose governing coalition in order to organize work teams — cleaning crews, cooks. They took over the job of de-coding the data ink from Aleth and started a methodical tally of names — who had arrived and who had yet to show up. Then they began negotiations with Odin for assistance in finding the missing.

Aleth was relieved to have someone else in charge. Loki, however, quickly became frustrated. The elders refused to work with him. In fact, they refused to speak either to him or to Sannaet, turning their backs should they approach, handing messages back to their bearers unanswered.

At the end of the third week, Odin had had enough, enough of their recalcitrance, enough of the emotional chaos they caused, enough of the mounting drain on the palace’s resources. He went to the crowded throne room and confronted Aleth along with the elders. During the hours they were closeted together, the elders offered as much information as Odin requested, but insisted they could not go home yet. After all, they argued, “How could our safety be ensured?”

*****

When Loki heard that the Allfather had met with the elders, he immediately sought him out. Taking the box with him — though not entirely certain he wanted to share its contents — he walked unannounced into Odin’s study: “What did they tell you?”

Odin stood up at the intrusion, annoyed, as always, by Loki’s refusal to follow protocol. “I _had_ planned to send for you _after_ I gave the matter a bit of thought.” Loki greeted his father’s scowl with a blank silence, until Odin finally gestured to a chair and asked, “What do you need to know?”

Loki stepped closer to the table between them, but remained standing. “What can you tell me about the new arrivals? What do they say about their encounters with the Enemy?”

“At this point, fewer and fewer seem actually to encounter the Enemy themselves — they have only rumors. Most come out of fear of attack, rather than having actually been attacked.”

Loki took in that chunk of information and then nodded after a brief pause: “You see what the Enemy is doing, don’t you? They are being herded.”

Odin nodded — “That was my conclusion exactly.”

“Do they realize this?”

“Not yet.”

“If they stay, the Enemy will hunt them down here. The collateral damage will be significant.”

“Yet if they return to their home world, they will be slaughtered — we cannot protect them there.” Loki dropped his gaze and ran his fingers along the edge of the of the casket containing the book, calculating which of his cards to lay out. Odin watched silently, as a frown began settling into his face. He knew that look, and wondered what game, exactly, he would be asked to play a part in.

After a few moments, Loki arrived at some sort of conclusion. He straightened up and watched Odin carefully as he played his first card, “I suspect that, if they return, they will not have to be protected.”

Odin’s frown deepened. “What do you know?”

After a short hesitation, Loki pursed his lips, then laid out a larger set of cards: “If I am right, they harbor within them the potential for a more powerful magic than nearly any I have witnessed. A magic that will take the energy and matter from everything it perceives as hostile or artificial and convert it to rebuild entire structures. Possibly an entire city.” Here, he pushed the box to the center of the table, and explained his suspicions.

Odin’s response was blunt: “They will not believe you.”

Loki pursed his lips in annoyance. “Believe me, _that_ is the only reason I am telling you.” Odin grumbled, but Loki pushed ahead. “You will have to explain everything to them. You will have to convince them to transport themselves — as many as is physically possible — in some discreet way back to Helsingor.”

Odin sat in silence while he calculated the implications of Loki’s theory before observing, “If you are right, they will destroy their own power grid — everything that still fuels the systems in the archive will be absorbed or eliminated.”

Loki nodded, “I had thought of that, which is why you will also have to convince them to shut down the power supply to the Great Archive so it will be passed over by the spell.”

“No one will agree to do that — the doors, locking mechanisms, lights, and ventilation are all powered by those generators. Once the power shuts off, they would be trapped inside the Archive, and possibly destroyed even if they save the power system.” It was a grim assessment, and through it, Odin challenged Loki to reveal his final card: “It’s a suicide mission.”

Loki paused briefly before finally showing his hand. “Possibly — That is why Sannaet and I will go.”

 


	16. Of Basements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "After hours of descent and careful navigation, they found their way to the final door. It seemed surprisingly anti-climactic — no dramatic signage or warnings, just “caution — all doors will seal in the event of power loss” in unassuming lettering next to the locking mechanism. Sannaet pressed her thumb to the sensor, and the lock shushed open as it recognized the genetic pattern of her race. Once they were inside, the door slid shut, and the lock shushed itself back into place."

_“Put out the light, and then, put out the light.” Othello, V.2_

 

The elders set up three portals leading to separate rendezvous points within walking distance of the Great Archive. The Gwyrioneth decided to avoid using the Bifrost for transport because its signature was more difficult to disguise. They wanted to remain as inconspicuous as possible for as many days as they could manage.

Loki and Sannaet, on the other hand, deliberately traveled via the Bifrost as a diversionary tactic. If the Enemy saw two lone travelers in the open, they might be less likely to look for many in the shadows. They landed in the public square, directly in front of the Archive, and walked openly up the broken steps and into the basement.

On their previous trip, Sannaet had not much noticed the silence. The group had brought its own life with it — heartbeats, breathing, conversation, the rustle of clothing. Now, with just the two of them, incidental noises became magnified. Their footsteps echoed. Lights snicked on as they entered each section of stairwell and corridor, then snicked back off as they passed on. The low, soft breath of the ventilation system followed them, changing timbre and pitch as they passed from one section of the building to the next. Their heartbeats held conversations with each other. All else was silent.

After hours of descent and careful navigation, they found their way to the final door. It seemed surprisingly anti-climactic — no dramatic signage or warnings, just “caution — all doors will seal in the event of power loss” in unassuming lettering next to the locking mechanism. Sannaet pressed her thumb to the sensor, and the lock shushed open as it recognized the genetic pattern of her race. Once they were inside, the door slid shut, and the lock shushed itself back into place.

Once the lights flickered on they could see how enormous an operation it was to power the vast archives above them. Gleaming banks of machinery ranked in clean rows and hummed melodically as they converted the geothermal energy of the planet’s core into the energy that kept the building alive — lights, ventilation, doors, elevators, climate control. The control systems were grouped into discreet units, each of which linked to an independent section of the structure. There was no master switch. The generators for each building unit had to be switched off individually, leaving the power supply for the generator room itself for last.

They set up a camp of sorts near the door before they began, then walked to the opposite end of the room, intending to work their way back to front. They sent a message to the elders that they were ready to start, and began methodically throwing switches.

One. Two. Three. A dozen. Two. Each unit designed to give a satisfying click and a sigh as it powered down. The noise levels began to reduce significantly as they went. Click*sigh. Click*sigh. Click*sigh. Lights on the control panels winked out. Click*sigh. Click*sigh. Until only one control panel remained. Loki pulled out a small globe he had brought to light their way back to their bedroll. Sannaet inhaled, bit her lip and shut down the final piece of the system — click*sigh. The lights blinked out. The ventilators quit breathing. Silence.

Their footsteps seemed intrusive as they made their way over to their things. He held her hand as they walked softly back.

“We’ll have a good deal of time before they will be able begin the ritual, yes?” Loki was unusually tense as he spoke.

“Yes — you said yourself that it could be two or three days before they can transport everyone and prepare everything.”

“So we’re to just sit in the dark until it’s over. How do we know these things will even turn back on?”

“Of course they will.”

“But they’ve never been shut down before.”

“No.”

“What if they don’t restart? We just sit down here until someone figures out how to force all of these doors? Or what if the ritual doesn’t work, and they all get themselves killed? What then?” His heart filled with a tension she could feel him work hard to suppress. “I hate being underground.”

“So you’ve said.” Her voice was flat, and he glowered at her. “This was your idea,” she reminded him, “to shut down the generators as quickly as possible to make sure they could start the ritual as soon as possible.”

He grumbled, and she searched for ways to distract him: “Why don’t we eat and then douse the light. We should probably use as little of our own energy supply as possible, don’t you think?” He kept his mouth clamped shut, but began searching through their supplies nonetheless.

Once they had eaten and cleaned up, they arranged the cushions and took a short walk around the room. They had heard nothing from above, despite their signaling that the power had been shut down. Sannaet decided that it was best for both of them if they kept themselves as distracted as possible. Once they returned to the bedrolls, she climbed into his lap with a bit of a leer, and cooed, “Well, it seems as though we have a good deal of time to kill — how are we possibly going to keep ourselves occupied?” She leaned against his chest and nuzzled his neck.

He smiled, and caressed her hair, but did not otherwise respond to her teasing, “I don’t think we should let our guard down quite that much.”

She furrowed her brow — here was a strange role reversal: “I really cannot imagine any place more private or secure than here — there are literally dozens of doors, and hundreds of meters of building between us and the surface of the planet.”

“All the same, I do not trust it. There are other ways to travel through space. The Enemy could open a portal here and we would be completely unprepared.”

“That seems unlikely.” She frowned.

“I do not trust the dark.” He concluded.

“Hmph. That’s ironic.”

He scowled again, but didn’t offer a reply.

She sighed, and rested her head on his chest. “What shall we do then, play riddles?”

She could feel him roll his eyes even in his heart, and she smiled to herself. They sat for a while in the dark. This was no trouble for her. She had worked in these basements for years — it was almost homelike for her, and the silence was a blessed relief — only two hearts to listen to, rather than the cacophony of the palace. This felt like a vacation and she savored it.

Loki did not savor it. The longer the silence stretched out, the more troubled his heart became. He needed a distraction.

“Loki, maybe you could tell me some stories. You’re a reader.”

“You mean you want me to tell you lies?” The bare edge of bitterness crept into his voice. The Gwyrioneth’s treatment still stung.

“Yes.” Came her irritated reply. “Tell me a fictional tale to pass the time.”

“What kind of tale?”

“I don’t even know. I never read any myself. So you must choose.”

“Never?”

“No. We don’t write fiction. The closest thing to fiction I’ve read are books of mythology and fairy tales, to understand cultural context.”

“I see I will need to fill the gaps in your education. It has been woefully inadequate.”

“You’re not joking, are you? You really think it’s important?”

“A well-written story conveys more truth than a shelf full of history books, love.”

“I suppose we can debate that at some point,” she offered, a bit defensively.

“I will insist,” came his mock-serious reply, but he really did take his charge seriously, and thought carefully of the stories that had filled up his free time, remembering favorite titles from his childhood. Then he remembered Homer’s _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ — “These are the only two tales from Midgard that I remember, but I will never forget them. You might say that Odysseus is a bit of a role model of mine,” he added with a smile. He began at the beginning: “Anger be now your song, immortal one, Akhilleus’ anger, doomed and ruinous, that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss and crowded brave souls into the undergloom, leaving so many dead men — carrion for dogs and birds. . . .”

She listened for hours, but eventually got sleepy. Her eyelids drooped, and her head sank onto his shoulder. She slept for several hours until she was jolted awake when the elders sent word that they had nearly everything in place above. The ceremony would probably begin within the next sleep cycle, but the pair were warned that they should not to expect any further communications until after all was over. It was a short, clipped, grudging communique, as though the sender resented having to send it at all.

They ate, went for another walk around the room to stretch their legs, and then Loki continued his story. Sannaet napped once more, and they repeated the cycle of activity until Loki almost made it all the way through _The Odyssey_. Eventually, though, she was again lulled back to sleep by the sonorous melody of his narrative. Her breathing slowed and deepened.

He held her close in his lap like a security blanket, but he could not sleep. The silence hung over him, pressed down on him like an ocean of water overhead. They had been stuck in the silent dark for over 20 hours since their last contact with the elders, and still heard nothing of the preparations above. _I hate being underground_ , he told himself — and not for the last time.

Then he heard them.

Whispers.

He couldn’t quite make out what they said, but he certainly heard the hushed voices of at least two beings.

Very very carefully, he lay Sannaet down on the bedroll and began to creep silently in search of those voices. They were clearer now — one low and reptilian, the other a deep baritone rasp — but the content maddeningly remained just beyond his comprehension.

He continued his slow, silent stalking as he moved through the maze of machines. _Surely I must be getting close now_. The voices became ever so slightly clearer, and he began to catch tiny fragments of the conversation: “unstable . . . effeminate . . . childish . . .”

He felt his face flush. He knew those voices, but it was impossible they could be whom he thought. Yet they were an unmistakable match.

“I am glad he was raised by another — it has saved me the pain of acknowledging such a failure as my own.”

Loki was getting close, he knew, and pulled his knife in anticipation.

Then he heard the scrape of a boot behind him. Instinct took over and he launched himself toward the lurker, missing by inches, before righting himself to renew his attack.

“Loki!” Sannaet yelled out as she ducked away from his blows, saved by the fact that she was so much smaller than the target he had anticipated.

The voices vanished.

“By the great goddess in Hel, what are you doing?” He hissed. “They’re here. Can’t you hear them? You have to be more careful!” His blood pumped fast as the adrenaline assaulted his nervous system

“Who? Loki, there’s no one here.”

His heart boiled with rage as he shoved her back against a bank of machines and stood protectively in front of her.

“Loki,” she grabbed his arm from behind. “No one is here. I would feel their hearts.”

“No one?”

“No.”

“I heard them,” and he backed up until he, too, rested his back against the cold metal.

“There is no one here,” she insisted once again.

He clutched at her hand. As realization dawned on him, his rage and fear drained away and they were replaced by shame and self-loathing. “It was all just here!” He hissed at himself as he brought his fists up to his temples, even as he still clung to her hand, “only in here!” He pounded at his forehead in frustration.

“Come away,” she urged. “Come back and sit with me.”

He complied in a daze, and when they reached their camp, he sank onto the bedroll with his back against the wall and covered his eyes with the heels of his hands.

She lowered herself to her knees to face him, placing a hand on his thigh and brushing his hair from his face. “Can you tell me what happened?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lines from The Iliad are quoted from Robert Fitzgerald's translation for Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004. (Bk 1.ll 1-6).


	17. Of Testimony and Bearing Witness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Slowly the atmosphere began to change. The air began to crackle with energy — their skin tingled and their hair began to stand on end. The air began to glow softly just above the speakers as a cloud of energy began to form about them.  
> From above, the glow was like a beacon for the Enemy, and his forces soon began to move in for the attack, sending out a vanguard of flyers with lightweight energy canon. They expected a fairly easy cleanup."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angsty ansgt -- lots of feels in this one; I'm sure it's unbecoming of me to say it, but this is probably my favorite chapter in the whole story.

_“O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound_   
_And crown what I profess with kind event_   
_If I speak true.” The Tempest, III.1_

_“It is required you do awake your faith.” The Winter’s Tale, V_

 

Above ground, Aleth could see the thousands of refugees that surrounded the Archive. Seated in circles, each circle connected through physical contact with at least one other, as a member of one group leaned his or her back against that of a neighbor behind them. These circles stretched down the street and around the corners in each direction as far as the eye could see. Each heart had with it only a small sack full of provisions — mostly high-energy bars — and water. Every 50 feet or so, one of the elders stood, watching one another, overlooking the crowd to judge its readiness, scanning the skies for any warning signs. The streets filled with the murmuration of hushed, nervous conversation. Finally, one of the elders raised her arms, and silence spread out away from her like ripples. As she lowered them, all of the elders called out in unison:

          WHO ARE YOU?

An ocean of voices responded:

          I AM

> kiraclaudiolisacarscamsonydaricorinratarasvenkarenandersalephsannaetkirstenwilhelmaliciatamarmynalonnisonjaalexnecivalenferranlorenjeanbelaravicyandaelrubykatpaxmagdamarenreganmargitindiraionadarienwynnelaurendevyn

Names piled on top of one another in a universal declaration — a claim for meaning through sound that washed over the landscape.

          WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF YOUR GREATEST PAIN?

And again the waves of their responses crashed against the landscape:

> Darknesssolitudeabusepainhelplessnessdessertionlonlinessspeechlessnessimpotenceentrapmentdepressionsolitudeneglectdarknesshelplessnessguiltdessertionspeechlessnessentrapmentimpotencesilencelonlinessdarknesshelplessness

          HOW ARE YOU GREATER THAN YOUR PAIN?

Once more the tide of sound washed over the streets and flowed through the air, as thousands of voices told the stories of how their pain had changed them, woven itself into their identities, and become part of their strength, while the waves of sound ebbed and flowed with each call and each response.

Then they began again.

> WHO ARE YOU?
> 
> I AM
> 
> Kiraclaudiolisacarscamsonydaricorinratarasvenkarenandersalephsannaetkirstenwilhelmaliciatamarmynalonnisonjaalexnecivalenferranlorenjeanbelaravicyandaelrubykatpaxmagdamarenreganmargitindiraionadarienwynnelaurendevyn
> 
> WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF YOUR GREATEST PAIN?
> 
> Darknesssolitudeabusepainhelplessnessdessertionlonlinessspeechlessnessimpotenceentrapmentdepressionsolitudeneglectdarknesshelplessnessguiltdessertionspeechlessnessentrapmentimpotencesilencelonlinessdarknesshelplessness
> 
> HOW ARE YOU GREATER THAN YOUR PAIN?

 

Slowly the atmosphere began to change. The air began to crackle with energy — their skin tingled and their hair began to stand on end. The air began to glow softly just above the speakers as a cloud of energy began to form about them.

From above, the glow was like a beacon for the Enemy, and his forces soon began to move in for the attack, sending out a vanguard of flyers with lightweight energy canon. They expected a fairly easy cleanup. A viewer might have seen the bursts of light as fighters launched.

*****

Deep in the Archive, Loki drew his knees up as he began to speak, staring at his hands as if only they were at fault for all that he had done. His brow knit itself together and his jaw clenched tight as he remembered looking past his brother, seeking that face where he had at last hoped to see acceptance, watching all he had admired and honored shrink into nothing as he dropped into empty space. “I don’t know how long I fell. There was no way to mark time in that void. I slipped in and out of consciousness. When I was awake, the silence was more profound than any I have ever experienced. The only thing to feel was a cold more bitter than any in Jotunheim. After what seemed like forever, my mind began to supply the sensory stimulus that it lacked. I began to hear a hideously discordant music; then the voices started — whispers at first, maddeningly incoherent. I strained to hear what they said, but when I saw their faces and understood, I prayed I could unhear them once again. Ceaseless taunting. Laufey’s sneering basso growling that I was a parricide. Thor taunting over and over — ‘not strong enough, not brave enough, not good enough.’ I could see his face as he said it. And always behind him was Odin. Always looking down. Always saying the same thing” — and here he stopped, choking on the words, unable to speak, but Sannaet knew. The words drew her forehead taut, and twisted her face awry with pain:

“No.” She whispered it. “He always said ‘no.’”

Loki let out a deep, guttural shout of frustration as she said it, beating his fist against the wall. “I can hear him saying it even now,” he cried, as he squeezed his eyes tight and threw his head back against the wall.

She took his hand and held against her lips, waiting until he could go on, knowing instinctively that he had to tell his tale at his own pace. Finally he caught his breath and opened his eyes once more. He barked out a cold, ironic laugh as he began again: “I thought that I was in Hel, but I had no idea what real pain was. Not yet.” And his eyes took on a haunted, desperate look.

*****

The elders ignored the threat of the oncoming Enemy forces completely, and the chant continued. Now, however, the narrative shifted as the elders altered their call. The assembled voices no longer told disparate and inchoate stories. They began to narrate a collective story in a single, choral voice:

> WHO ARE WE?

Rang the call.

> WE ARE THE STORIES.

Came the explosive response.

> WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR GREATEST PAIN?
> 
> OBLIVION.
> 
> HOW ARE WE GREATER THAN OUR PAIN?
> 
> WE WEAVE THAT PAIN INTO A NARRATIVE THAT UNITES DARKNESS WITH LIGHT, FUSES LIFE WITH DEATH, AND REVEALS TRUTH THROUGH LIES.

 

The radius of their energy expanded outward with each repetition, forming a dome of light above the ruined Archive.

> WHO ARE WE?
> 
> WE ARE THE STORIES.
> 
> WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR GREATEST PAIN?
> 
> OBLIVION.
> 
> HOW ARE WE GREATER THAN OUR PAIN?
> 
> WE WEAVE THAT PAIN INTO A NARRATIVE THAT UNITES DARKNESS WITH LIGHT, FUSES LIFE WITH DEATH, AND REVEALS TRUTH THROUGH LIES.

Aleth’s heart raced as the first wave of attack reached the perimeter of energy and began to fire. He braced himself for the explosions to come.

Nothing happened.

None of the blasts emerged within the dome. Each was absorbed by the soft light of the energy field. The dome of light grew.

Suddenly, the steps of the Archive began to shift, to right themselves and heal their cracks. The Archive began to repair itself.

*****

When Loki resumed his tale, his voice took on an ironic tone as he attempted to distance himself from his memories: “Eventually I lost consciousness entirely from lack of nourishment. When I awoke, I was trussed up in chains on a slaver ship, and was sold several times before the Enemy discovered me and decided I might be of use.

“They stripped me of everything, hung me from the ceiling like a side of meat — like the hanging man,” he reached up to touch the very spot where the mark branded her skin, and finally raised his eyes to her face, his forehead drawn tight as he remembered the pain, wincing as he described it. “They beat me. Branded me with fire and ice. Even afterward, locked up in my prison in Asgard, the wounds persisted, the healers could never entirely erase the traces left on my skin.”

“For how long?”

“Days? Weeks? I stopped marking time. There was no interrogation. They wanted no information, though I would have made up grand stories to answer anything they had asked. They already knew what they wanted. Knew me. Knew my shames.” He stopped short again. Grit his teeth. She smoothed his hair, and caressed his cheek.

*****

> WHO ARE WE?
> 
> WE ARE THE STORIES.
> 
> WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR GREATEST PAIN?
> 
> OBLIVION.
> 
> HOW ARE WE GREATER THAN OUR PAIN?
> 
> WE WEAVE THAT PAIN INTO A NARRATIVE THAT UNITES DARKNESS WITH LIGHT, FUSES LIFE WITH DEATH, AND REVEALS TRUTH THROUGH LIES.

The enemy continued their assault, thinking to push through the field and attack at close range, but the light absorbed not only their cannon fire, but the attackers themselves — weapons, ordinance, ships, warriors, all disappeared as they came into contact with the glowing cloud, dissolving into the light.

> WHO ARE WE?
> 
> WE ARE THE STORIES.
> 
> WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR GREATEST PAIN?
> 
> OBLIVION.
> 
> HOW ARE WE GREATER THAN OUR PAIN?
> 
> WE WEAVE THAT PAIN INTO A NARRATIVE THAT UNITES DARKNESS WITH LIGHT, FUSES LIFE WITH DEATH, AND REVEALS TRUTH THROUGH LIES.

A second wave came out, boasting larger weapons, more formidable transport. Blasts rained down onto the expanding dome of light.

All was absorbed as it made contact, converted from matter to energy. The structure of the Archive began to re-form. Masonry repaired itself. Ashes re-formed into infrastructure. Glass re-formed into clear panes. Plants within the diameter of the field began to grow and their colors intensified.

*****

Loki shifted his gaze away from hers once again, fixing his eyes once more on his hands.

“When finally the captain came, he did not beat me, just talked. A mesmerizing voice; I’m sure you remember it — I will never forget, though at first the words meant nothing — it was all lost in a haze of pain. He fed me with his own hands, as though I was his dog. It revolts me to think of it. He told me that my gifts had been undervalued. He said that Odin had kept me alive merely to serve as a shadow for his real son, so that Thor’s light would seem to shine more brightly. He told me that my greatest mistake had been to allow my sentiment to cloud my judgement — that love and sympathy were the greatest barriers to successful rule — a lesson, he pointed out incessantly, that Odin had learned long ago — that I was stupid to believe Odin had cared for me, stupid to seek his approval. Oh he nurtured my resentments and insecurities, bound me to him with flattery, even as I was still bound and feeble with pain and starvation. He suggested a fine way for me to prove my worth. I could conquer the world my brother claimed to love so well, to wrest its ownership away from him, and my new champion, of course, would fully support me with an army — it would be all mine to command as I saw fit, in exchange for one small thing . . . A little thing. When I accepted, he branded my chest once more with a death’s head and brought me into the presence of The Enemy. He gave me the scepter, and they unleashed me into the universe.”

*****

> WHO ARE WE?
> 
> WE ARE THE STORIES.
> 
> WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR GREATEST PAIN?
> 
> OBLIVION.
> 
> HOW ARE WE GREATER THAN OUR PAIN?
> 
> WE WEAVE THAT PAIN INTO A NARRATIVE THAT UNITES DARKNESS WITH LIGHT, FUSES LIFE WITH DEATH, AND REVEALS TRUTH THROUGH LIES.

By this point, the Enemy’s army had been reduced by half. They halted their advance and instead attempted to maintain a steady 100-yard distance from the dome which was now expanding rapidly. They rained explosives onto the field. It’s power had grown to such an extent, however, that it now not only absorbed objects it came into contact with, but actively sought out its attackers, first draining the energy from the ships, then pulling apart their very molecules before sucking the disassociated matter into its light.

*****

“When I think back on that naive boy who fought so hard to gain the respect of a brother he admired, that boy who tried so desperately to gain approval from the cold-hearted bastard I called father. That boy is gone forever. They took everything from me. I have no father, no mother, no race that will claim me. All that's left is this shell full of rage that cannot be controlled. No one trusts me. I cannot even trust myself. You have seen it — there are times when my hands do not even seem to be my own, they belong only to that monster.” His face now seemed very much like that lost boy, frustrated and helpless in the face an emotional cyclone that threatened constantly to burst out from the shadows of his subconscious and overwhelm all rational thought.

*****

> WHO ARE WE?
> 
> WE ARE THE STORIES.
> 
> WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF OUR GREATEST PAIN?
> 
> OBLIVION.
> 
> HOW ARE WE GREATER THAN OUR PAIN?
> 
> WE WEAVE THAT PAIN INTO A NARRATIVE THAT UNITES DARKNESS WITH LIGHT, FUSES LIFE WITH DEATH, AND REVEALS TRUTH THROUGH LIES.

As the command ship waited above the atmosphere, fear began to infect the crew. They watched their fleet erased before their eyes, as the destructive power of their weapons only added to the expanding ball of energy. When their own lights began to flicker, and fuel readings began to fluctuate wildly, the crew began to panic.

Then they began to get sleepy.

The Enemy fled, his once impressive fleet dissolved into energy, resurrected in a re-built world.

> ** WE ARE THE STORIES . . . **

*****

Sannaet stood, took Loki’s hand and urged him to stand, as well: “You are like Achilles — your heart filled with an unbearable grief, your eyes blaze like fire with fierce anger against the Enemy — and yourself. You have spent a lifetime armed for battle,” she said, “It is time to become Odysseus once more, and go home.”

His eyes followed the path of her hands as they ran over his armor-clad shoulders and chest. She raised her eyes to his for his assent, and when he nodded, she began disassembling his armor. First the cloak that echoed his every movement. Next the sword belt and knives. Then she unclasped the spaulder from his shoulders and the finely crafted vambraces from his arms. She unbuckled the breastplate and carefully set it aside before kneeling to unbuckle his scynbalds and pull off his boots and leathers. Then finally she peeled away the tunic beneath,

                    until he was just himself.

And as she began to trace the patterns on his scarred flesh, he traced the tracks her tears had left on her cheeks. She leaned close to kiss his old wounds, until he responded with kisses of his own, sinking to his knees and pulling her down with him. Sliding his hands beneath her tunic to raise it over her head, he traced her own scars written in ink, the stories of a race that had rejected her.

Their bodies moved with each other, and within one another. He felt her pleasure. She cried his tears. They breathed the same breath.

And as they retold the stories carved into their flesh, a bright golden energy swept into the room from above and filled it with warmth. They felt it push over them and through them — a sudden change in air pressure that washed their skin. A dim afterglow lingered in its wake as did a rush of euphoria that catalyzed an ecstatic orgasm as he thrust deep into her. After their release, they fell into a profound sleep locked together in each other’s arms.


	18. Of Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A huge fist began pounding on the door, and a muffled voice echoed through the room.  
>  “Thor has come to rescue me,” Loki sighed with a smirk.

_“We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl”_ — David Gilmore and Roger Waters

 

After many hours the energy finally exhausted itself, dissipating into the atmosphere as voices grew silent. The Archive had completely rebuilt itself, the streets within the perimeter of the dome had also been repaired. Gardens were wild with new growth, over-run with tangled vines, bright with vibrantly-colored flowers. The chanters blinked and rubbed their eyes as they emerged from their trance — touching their neighbors, running their fingers through their hair. They began to stand and look around at what had happened. Most remained silent, too overwhelmed to speak.

The elders wandered through the crowd, touching hands, reassuring themselves that everyone was ok. No one seemed quite willing to break the spell entirely by leaving the group, or entering the newly repaired buildings. Finally, however, someone began to wander up the stairs of the Archive, and the elders decided to urge others to do the same — it was the most logical place to shelter for the night, and plan for the future.

As Aleth made his way inside he overheard two of the elders whispering together. “What about the Strangers in the basement?” one asked another. “I do not see that they are any of our concern,” came the reply. “If they live, they can save themselves.” He was momentarily taken aback by this callousness, and paused on the steps of the portico. But then nodded his head in silent agreement. _It is better that way_ , he thought to himself, and moved once more with the crowd as it flowed inside the archive. _She will be better without us._

*****

Loki awoke to a familiar, rhythmic thrumming as the lights above began to blink to life above them.

“Sannaet,” he whispered, as he brushed the stray hair from her face.

“Hmmm?” She burrowed in closer to his embrace. He chuckled, and her eyes blinked open reluctantly. “What? . . . Why are the lights on?”

“I think,” he speculated, “that the generators spontaneously restarted.”

“Well,” she smiled, “I knew the sex was good, but I didn’t think it was that good.” He snorted and leaned down for a long, lingering kiss.

“I suppose this means that we will have to venture back to civilization.”

“Eventually,” he conceded, “though I don’t suppose we we would have to return immediately.” He smiled mischievously, “you don’t suppose they would come looking for us, would you?”

She paused as she reached out with her heart and listened. “I don’t feel anyone close by.”

“Well then, I don’t suppose there’s any rush,” and he moved in to take another deep drink of her lips. She closed her eyes as she opened up to him once more.

Then she stiffened and drew back, “dammit.”

“What?”

“Someone just materialized in the corridor.”

“I thought you said that couldn’t be done,” as he reached for his clothes and looked around for a blade.

“Heimdahl must have figured something out.” And as she finished, a huge fist began pounding on the door, and a muffled voice echoed through the room.

“Thor has come to rescue me,” Loki sighed with a smirk.

Sannaet stifled a rude noise and began pulling on her clothes while Loki went to open the door.

*****

Sannaet reached up to put the finishing touches on the portrait then stopped abruptly — “Don’t you dare!”

“Damn!” came the reply from behind her chair as Loki pulled back the hand that had been inches from the back of her neck.

She twisted around in her seat to face him. “Do you want me to ruin it? It’s almost finished!”

“I’m just practicing.”

“Practicing what — how to be a pain? You’ve already mastered that.” But she smiled as she said it and planted a smooch on his cheek.

“There’s got to be some way to sneak up on an empath — I just need to find the trick.”

“If anyone can, I’m sure you’ll be the one to figure it out.”

“Are you patronizing me?”

“I would never presume.

“Yes, you would.”

“Yes,” she smirked, “I suppose I would.”

He pulled her toward him and kissed her, lingering long enough to take her breath away — “It’s a good thing I love you,” he retorted when he finally pulled away.

She smiled wickedly, “It’s a good thing I let you.”

“Oh!” She leapt out of the way as he lunged over the chair.

“Nonononono — don’t wreck the picture — it’s a gift!” She laughed as she pulled him away from her work.

“I don’t know. Thor doesn’t seem to be the type to collect artwork.”

“Do you think he’ll like it? It’s the last thing I wanted to get done before the banquet. Jane will be there, and I thought they would like a portrait of the two of them.”

“I’m sure he will. He has become quite the romantic.” He rolled his eyes, and she giggled at his sarcastic tone.

“Everyone has been so gracious. I feel I should do something. I feel, well, almost as though I were home.”

“You have a home here for as long as you wish it. Even an official title.” He gestured to a large desk with an impressive plaque declaring her Official Historian to the Asgardian Court.

“Odin has been particularly gracious. I will have to find a new nickname for him.”

“Perhaps The Luke-warm-hearted bastard.”

She snorted and elbowed him in the ribs.

“I have something for you, too.”

“Oh?” He smirked and raised an eyebrow.

“Not that — you’ll get that later, anyway.” She pulled away from him once more to move to a cupboard out of which she lifted a small triptych — three images held together by hinges, so they could be closed up. On the right was the hanging man, done all in shades of green. On the right was a woman in black facing away toward the outside frame. In the center, the pair sat together in front of an olive tree in full bloom with a storybook open in front of them, and these words underneath:

> “Longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer, who is spent by the rough water where his ship went down under Poseiden’s blows, gale winds, and tons of sea. Few men can keep alive through a big surf to crawl, clotted with brine, onto kindly beaches in joy, knowing the abyss is behind.” — _The Odyssey_

“I feel as though I have escaped drowning,” she whispered as she set it on a table.

He pulled her close and replied, “So many years lost to the wine dark seas. It feels good to walk on the shore at last.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I read The Odyssey, my favorite bits aren't the monsters and amazing feats of prowess. My favorite part is Odysseus's reunion with Penelope. He was gone for 20 years, neither of them is the same person that waved goodbye when Odysseus left for the Trojan War. And Penelope is not quite sure she recognizes (in that seasoned, battle weary warrior) the man that she fell in love with all those years ago. When she finally relents and sees the husband beneath the warrior, there is an affirmation in the poem that their love is very different than the flush of new romance that gets valorized in modern pop culture. Their love is like the ancient olive tree that Odysseus once used to fashion their marriage bed -- the roots go deep, the wood polished, the supports strong and immovable, and the whole structure kept private -- a secret only between themselves. For the 20 years of Odysseus's absence, they were adrift, alone, and in fear that they would never reach the shore. So when they finally collapse into each other's arms, it is a more-than-homecoming -- it is like the nearly-drowned man finally reaching dry land.  
> That image seems to capture Loki and Sannaet's relationship at this point. It is more than infatuation, more than friendship. It is the dry land after the endless ocean.


End file.
